Intelligent Parallel Parking and Obstacle Avoidance System
Spring 2011 Senior Design Project
Abhishek Yadav
Department of Electrical Engineering
University of New Orleans
New Orleans, LA USA
ayadav1@uno.edu
Abstract— The objective of this project is to design and
build the Intelligent Parallel Parking and Obstacle Avoidance
System. The system is comprised of mechanical, navigation,
microprocessing and power systems installed on a model car. The
system measures an available parking space, checks whether the
space is large enough for parking, aligns the car correctly in the
traffic lane and then performs the necessary parallel parking
maneuvers into the parking spot. In addition to parallel parking,
the system can detect static obstacles, like road blocks and
dynamic obstacles, like pedestrians, in the vehicle’s path. If
dynamic obstacles are detected, the vehicle stops until the
obstacle moves out of the way. If static obstacles are detected, the
vehicle maneuvers around the obstacle ensuring a collision free
trajectory. The project entailed many tasks like mechanical
design and assembly, strategic sensor placement and interfacing,
power regulation and programming. This paper focuses on my
personal contributions to the system design in addition to various
contributions my teammates.
Keywords-autonomous vehicle; intelligent parallel parking;
sensors; motor control; dc motor; servo motor; stepper motor
I. INTRODUCTION
With the development in artificial intelligent industry,
more car manufactures are upgrading their product by adding
smart technology. One of the important additions to four-
wheeled vehicles is the function of autonomous parallel
parking. Manufactures like Toyota, Ford and BMW are adding
this feature. Due to the need of precisely calculated parallel
parking maneuvers, even experienced drivers find it very
difficult to parallel park. Therefore, autonomous parallel
parking feature is very convenient for drivers.
The parking system of manufactures like Ford only
performs the steering maneuvers and requires the driver
to manually operate the gas pedal. Also, in the presence of an
obstacle, the driver is required to hit the brake manually as seen
in [1]. Therefore, there is a need for a parallel parking system
that will completely replace the driver for the purpose of
parallel parking.
Intelligent Parallel Parking and Obstacle Avoidance System
(IPPOAS) is flexible enough to be installed in any four-
wheeled vehicle. IPPOAS can detect obstacles in the traffic
lane, maneuver around static obstacles like road blocks, stop
for dynamic obstacles like pedestrians crossing the traffic lane,
detect parking space, check whether the parking space is large
enough for parallel parking and perform the necessary parking
maneuver into the parking spot. IPPOAS will provide the user
with the ability to drop off the vehicle in the traffic lane and be
ensured that the vehicle will park independently without any
incidents.
IPPOAS is a response to the need for an intelligent parallel
parking system that can be installed in any four-wheeled
vehicle regardless of its make and model.
Curb
Ending
Position
Starting
Position
Figure 1 – Parallel Parking Maneuver
IPPOAS focuses on robust engineering design, advanced
sensor systems, strategic placement of sensor arrays, efficient
programming techniques and multiple testing scenarios. Design
requirements for this project are the knowledge of available
sensor technologies, knowledge of the vehicle steering
function, knowledge of available microprocessing solutions
and design of parallel parking and obstacle avoidance
algorithms.
Our goal is to provide intelligent and independent parallel
parking solution. Also, we seek to incorporate obstacle
detection and obstacle avoidance maneuvers in the traffic lane,
therefore, leading to an increase in the use of autonomous
features in vehicle navigation.
Figure 1 shows the maneuver executed by IPPOAS to
perform parallel parking. Figure 2 shows the maneuver
performed by IPPOAS in presence of a static obstacle. Also,
the vehicle stops in presence of dynamic obstacle as seen in the
bottom part of Figure 2.
 introduced a few modifications from our initial design. First of
all, the DC motor provided with the chassis required high
current and power which didn’t meet our design specification.
It required a high current of 2.5 A as seen in [2]; whereas, the
Static Obstacle H-bridge providing the forward and backward drive logic to the
DC motor could not handle current over 1 A as seen in [3].
Also, the speed of the original DC motor was too high for the
purpose of parallel parking. Therefore, we used the back-up
DC motor which was ordered separately. As the back-up DC
motor was considerably smaller in size, we had to design a new
Ending Starting motor mount to secure the new DC motor onto the DC motor
Position Position casing designed for a larger motor. To solve this problem, we
used a plastic housing that would hold the small DC motor into
the larger space. It was fastened to the housing using screws
and washers to eliminate any unwanted wobbling of the motor
body.

Dynamic Next, we finalized the design of the steering motor. While

Obstacle
Stopping for a
pedestrian
Figure 2 – Obstacle Avoidance
IPPOAS will impart a positive societal impact
by incorporating innovative, clean and smart technologies to
improve the quality of life of drivers. One major societal
impact of the project is to decrease the frequency of parking
accidents and increase the safety and comfort of drivers.
II. MECHANICAL DESIGN
testing the steering motor, we realized that using a servo motor
instead of a stepper motor would suffice for our project. The
stepper motor, as the name suggests, can move in precise steps
and operate in an open loop system as seen in [4]. However, the
stepper motor was too bulky to be used for steering; therefore,
we replaced it with a servo motor bought from a local hobby
store.
After, the completion of the final design, we were ready to
assemble these parts and interface them with each other. Figure
3 shows the configuration of individual parts mounted on the
chassis.
1 8 8 2
13 7
5

6
A. Initial Design
The tentative design of our project was sketched 3 12 10 11
9
during our Senior Design I class. Since we were focusing less 4
6
on the mechanical system and more on the navigation and
microprocessing system, we decided to purchase a built-in 13 7
chassis that would come with the motor and gear system
already installed. Each task leader prepared a rough draft of his 1 2
system design and these designs were discussed in the team
meeting for approval. After a couple of weeks, the initial design
S. No Components
was completed. Following the initial design, we decided to use 1 Front Wheels
a DC motor to drive the back wheel, a stepper motor to steer 2 Real Wheels
the vehicle, four infrared sensors for obstacle detection (two on 3 Servo Steering Motor
the front and two on the rear), two ultrasonic sensors for 4 DC Motor for Rear-Wheel Drive
5 Gear Box
distance measurement (attached to the right hand side of the 6 Cross-tanked Front IR Sensors
chassis), a microprocessor with at least 6 analog pins, a 7-8 V 7 Cross-tanked Back IR Sensors
battery to power the dc motor and a 5 V USB battery to power 8 Distance sensors
all other components. Based on these criteria we ordered the 9 Microcontroller
10 7.2 V Ni-Cd Battery
parts, and started to build our product. 11 5 V USB Battery
12 Breadboard with H-bridge
B. Final Design 13 Steering Rods
Once we received these parts, we started to test them
individually and finalize our design. The final design phase
Figure 3 – Final Design

Department of Electrical Engineering, The University of New Orleans

 III. MECHANICAL ASSEMBLY plastic casing, and attached our motor into the casing using
As the design of our system was finalized, we started to screws. Next, we attached the gear wheel to the motor head,
assemble the individual components. The Tamiya chassis used and tested the motor for the preferred speed.
as the base of the IPPOAS came in separate pieces along with After making sure that the motor was moving at the desired
the instruction manual. Using the manual, and making minor speed, we attached the gear head of the motor to the gear head
modifications, we assembled the pieces together to build the of the gear box. After proper alignment and fitting of the gear
chassis. Next, we mounted the DC motor onto the DC motor heads, we secured the DC motor mount to the chassis using a
housing of the chassis. single long screw.
After mounting the DC motor, we attached the servo motor
on the chassis. The servo motor was then connected to the
adjustable steering rods which connected to the right and left
front tires. The tires were properly aligned such that our vehicle
moved in a straight path by adjusting the length of steering
rods. An important aspect of assembling was to mount the
infrared sensors in a suitable configuration, such that their line
of sight could be adjusted. For mounts, we cut up aluminum
plates into the desired shapes, and mounted them onto strategic
locations on the chassis. The sensors could then be attached
onto these mounts. The ultrasonic sensors were mounted on the
right hand side of the chassis at the center of the vehicle length
using custom made aluminum plate mounts and double tape. Figure 4 – DC Motor Mount
A breadboard and the microprocessor were then attached on
the top of the chassis using double tape. The H-bridge and Figure 5 shows the completed DC motor mount. The
other circuitry were then placed on the breadboard. The circuits picture on the left shows the back of the DC mount with the
for the DC motor, the infrared sensors and the ultrasonic motor attached inside the casing. The picture on the right
sensors were obtained from their datasheets. The servo motor shows the two gear heads fitting together.
and the distance sensors were connected directly to the
microprocessor’s analog pin. Individual sensors and motors
C. Servo Motor and Steering Rods
were provided with an operating voltage of 5V using the USB
battery powering the microprocessor. After finishing the work on the DC motor mount, we
decided to attach the servo motor to the steering rods which
A. Chassis Assembly would control the angle of the front wheels.
The Chassis was assembled by following the directions in
the manual provided by the chassis manufacturer, Tamiya Servo Motor
Racing. Next, the wheels were attached to the chassis. After the
completion of chassis assembly, we moved on to attaching the
DC motor to the gear box of the chassis, which moved the rear
wheels of the vehicle. Figure 4 shows the assembled chassis.

Figure 6 – Servo Motor

We used double sided tape to fix the servo motor on the

Figure 4 – Assembled Chassis
B. DC Motor Mount
As the DC motor that came with the chassis was not
suitable for our project, we had to build our own DC motor
mount to attach the suitable Polulu dc motor to the gear system
which attached to the back wheels. We started with an empty
space on the chassis provided for a steering motor. Then, the
steering rods were attached to the servo motor. The steering
rods were adjustable, meaning that, we could alter the length of
the rods by screwing or unscrewing the plastic head of the
steering rods. This allowed us to properly align the front
wheels, making sure that the vehicle would travel in a straight
line.
 Figure 6 shows the top view of the servo motor attached to
the steering rods and the front wheels. Figure 7 shows the
bottom view of the adjustable steering rods attached to the front
wheels, using the screw caps.
Steering Rod
Figure 7 – Adjustable Steering Rods
D. Sensor Mounts
After completing the assembly of the servo motor and the
steering rods, we moved on to assemble the sensors onto the
chassis. To attach the sensors, we had to design sensor mounts.
We knew we were going to configure the sensors in a cross
tank; therefore, we had to ensure that the sensors would not
interfere with each other’s line of sight. We chose to cut out
aluminum sheets in a T-shape to make the front sensor mounts.
Also, the stem of one sensor mount was made smaller than the
other, such that, they would not interfere with each other’s line
of sight. Figure 8 shows the front infrared sensors attached to
the sensor mounts, which were attached to the chassis.
Figure 8 – Front Infrared Sensor Mounts
.
Similarly, the sensor mounts for the rear infrared sensors
were cut out in an I-shape. Figure 9 shows one of the two rear
infrared sensors attached to the sensor mount, which was
attached to the chassis.
Figure 9 - Rear Infrared Sensor Mount
Similarly, the ultrasonic distance sensors were attached to
the right hand side of the chassis using an L-shaped and a
square-shaped sensor mount made out of aluminum cut-outs.
Figure 10 – Ultrasonic Sensor Mounts
Figure 10 shows the ultrasonic sensors attached to the
sensor mounts, which were attached to the chassis using
double sided tape.
E. Other Components
After the work on sensor mounts were completed, major
work on assembling the chassis was finished. Next, we
attached various other components like the microprocessor, the
breadboard and the batteries to the chassis as appropriate.
The microprocessor and the breadboard were placed next to
each other on the middle section of the chassis and attached to
the chassis using a piece of aluminum plate and double sided-
tape. Figure 11 shows the mounted microprocessor and the
breadboard.
Microprocessor
Breadboard
Figure 11 – Microprocessor and Breadboard Mount
 Next, we placed the 7.2 V Ni-Cd battery, which powered
the DC motor, in the provided battery housing at the base of the
chassis. We placed a cover on the battery, to ensure that the
battery would not be exposed to the outside environment using
the battery cover that came with the chassis.
Battery Casing
Battery
Figure 12 – Battery Housing
Figure 12 shows the base of the chassis with the battery
housing and the battery cover.
Next, we decided to mount the 5 V USB battery, which
powered all other electronic components, beneath the tail of the
vehicle. Finally, we attached the vehicle cover on the chassis
using a single screw, which completed the assembly of the
mechanical system.
Figure 13 shows the completed mechanical design. It must
be noted that the final mechanical assembly was completed as
various components were interfaced with each other and we
had a completely working design.
Figure 13 – Final Assembled Product
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I would like to thank Dr. Parviz Rastgoufard for his
unwavering guidance, motivation, and feedback which were
crucial to project management and completion. Also, I would
like to thank Dr. Jeffrey Frank Gray for getting my team started
with the project, which gave us a head start with the design
phase. Next, I would like to thank the Department of Electrical
Engineering at The University of New Orleans for partially
funding our project.
I would like to thank Anil Pandey for the design of the
power system. I would like to thank Ajit Gauli for his expertise
with the sensor system. I would like to thank Nischal Basnet
for the long hours spent coding the parallel parking algorithms.
Without the collaboration and hard work of the group
members, this project would never be successful.
Last but not the least, I would like to extend my gratitude to
all my friends and family members, whose interest in the
project provided me the moral support to keep working
consistently on the project.
REFERENCES
[1] Ford Motor Company. http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?
article_id=29625 [Online]
[2] Mabuchi Motor.
http://www.mabuchi-motor.co.jp/en_US/cat_files/rs_540rhsh.pdf
[Online]
[3] Texas Instruments. http://focus.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/sn754410.pdf
[Online]
[4] Solarbotics. http://www.solarbotics.net/library/pdflib/pdf/motorbas.pdf
[Online]
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The template will number citations consecutively within
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Refer simply to the reference number, as in [3]—do not use
“Ref. [3]” or “reference [3]” except at the beginning of a
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