Author: yuxinguo

On the OpenCV side, we’ve connected Pi with camera, and ran multiprocessing on the Pi. As discussed with Prof. Kim, one concern is the resolution of photo taken during motion, and the processing speed of photos coming from multiple directions (details in Ke’s report). On the server side, we’ve fixed the http request forwarding issue, and several functionalities are in progress (see Ruizhe’s report). On the hardware side, we finished the circuit for the LED display component. We’ve also been working on the demo next week.

We’re currently on schedule, and there may be modification of design on the computer vision component to resolve the issue of blurred images.

On the software side, we encountered issues that http requests cannot be received by Pi. After testing, we found out that port forwarding is preventing the http requests from reaching Pi. We’ll be looking for solutions to circumvent this issue. (Detail in Roger’s report). On the computer vision side, we’re able to setup camera on the raspberry pi to run OpenCV algorithm. On the sensor side, the communication between ultrasound sensor script and the software is finished, and the runtime of parking spot availability is reduced. This allows us to quickly detect entering/exiting of cars from the spot, and later providing navigation to leave the garage once a car leaves.

We’re currently behind schedule due to the modification of design on the server side. We’ll try to resolve this issue by next week.

On the computer vision side, we’re able to run our OpenCV model on raspberry pi for plate recognition (detail in Ke’s report). The plate recognition is not 100% accurate (there can be addition/deletion/mismatch of letters in the result). To address this issue, we plan to match cars to plate numbers by comparing similarity score.

On the server side, the management part is mostly finished with blanks left to fill during testing and OpenCV integration. The design of navigation software is finished, and the design of data importation is ongoing (detail in Ruizhe’s report) . Race conditions may be possible for HTTP requests coming in at the same time. Solution to this is still under investigation but should be manageable.

On the hardware side, multiple sensors were successfully connected with Raspberry Pi to measure distance with adequate accuracy.

There’s no major modification of the system design, and we’re currently on schedule.

What are the most significant risks that could jeopardize the success of the project? How are these risks being managed? What contingency plans are ready?

1) The accuracy of plate recognition is the biggest challenge for our project right now. The resolution of pictures taken by our camera is not high enough for OCR OpenCV algorithms. In addition, there are letters other than plate number (e.g. state name) that add noise to the model. We’ll look into more ML algorithms and consider cropping out the plate region as preprocessing.

2) We foresee that there may be communication latency. The designated parking spot may not be sent to raspberry pi’s at intersections in time, and drivers will need to wait for instructions for a longer time. We’re still thinking about solution to this issue.

Proposed solutions:

Proposed backup for (1): 

We can move the work of recognition to the AWS EC2 servers which can sustain a higher processing load without too much latency; this will require the camera image be uploaded to the EC2 servers at a reasonable latency and speed; the current tested round trip time is 0.5 second on average under very moderate traffic; we have yet to test the round trip time under heavy traffic. This part of research is assigned to ruizhezh;

Proposed backup for (2): 

The proposing of backup solution for this issue relies on solving (1) first; currently no proposals are concretely stated for this issue, but many are planned; ruizhezh will investigate further on this in the coming weeks.

Were any changes made to the existing design of the system (requirements, block diagram, system spec, etc)? Why was this change necessary, what costs does the change incur, and how will these costs be mitigated going forward?

No change.

This is also the place to put some photos of your progress or to brag about a component you got working.

Server API framework:
https://github.com/Roger-ZRZ/SR_18500_Spring2022/tree/main/ParkingAdmin
(the project is currently private, please request access and I will add you)