Development of Piezoelectric Material Based Car Parking Sensor

Abstract

The Advance Smart Parking System is a common application for the automobile vehicles to the parking space detection and vehicle safety. Most of automobile manufacturing industries are working on the smart and advance parking sensors for the driver assistance in parking area and to warn driver about objects for reducing vehicle accidents. The main purpose this research work is to design and fabrication vehicle parking sensor (a distance measuring sensor, also known proximity sensor and reverse parking sensor) to detect obstacles such as walls, pedestrians, traffic cones etc. These vehicle parking sensors are commerciality available all over the world. They are mounted in the vehicle bumpers and as the distance to the object is reduced the driver is warned with a sounding beeps. Parking sensor are also integrated with dashboard display screen (infotainment system) and cameras to assist driver and autopilot (in driverless and self-driving vehicles) in parking the vehicle. Similar sensors are used in the side mirrors to warn driver about vehicles in other lanes (lane departure warning system (LDWS), lane warning/keeping systems). Majority of the commercialized vehicle parking sensors are based on ultrasonic piezoelectric technology. Piezoelectric ultrasonic generator can work both as an actuator for sending ultrasound frequencies and then as a sensor to receive the deflected sound waves from the nearby object. Using this principle, ultrasound vehicle parking sensors are employed in majority of latest model vehicles. First part of this project is to design a piezoelectric material vehicle parking sensor. The second part is of this project is to manufacture the designed vehicle parking sensor. The simulation of piezoelectric material are done in the finite element methods (FEM) software. The common material used for the manufacturing of a car parking sensor housing is a thermoplastic polymer known as Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), which is used due to its injection molding applications and lower production cost. Complete vehicle parking sensor with piezoelectric materials, casing and detection circuit is developed and porotypes are demonstrated for possible commercialization. This project can lead to indigenous development of this sensor and technology in Pakistan, as currently these sensors and related circuits are imported in Pakistan for use in the locally manufactured vehicles and as spare parts for locally and imported vehicles. Though this work is related to only vehicle, with little modification’s this work can be implemented to develop any type of piezoelectric proximity (distance measuring) sensor which are widely used in the industry.