With the aim of meeting the increasing demand for improved precision in smart parking devices, Libelium, the Spanish manufacturer of hardware and IoT solutions, has brought in radar technology for detecting the availability of parking spaces.

The new Smart Parking node improves detection as well as stability performance, thanks to a radar sensor that ensures precise detection (99%) of vehicles parked over the device that sends the data to the cloud through the LoRaWAN network.

IoT technology applied to the detection of parking places has the ability to reduce traffic, save fuel, decrease CO2 emissions and make the driving experience better and habitability of cities.

Additionally, smart parking devices are in high demand by municipalities to see rotation levels in restricted parking areas.

First real deployment is already happening in the city of Huesca (Northern Spain) where 190 nodes are being installed to identify the occupation of parking spaces for disabled people.

Radar technology offers better performance compared to infrared or magnetic detection.

However, radar parking devices are not vulnerable to electromagnetic interference and they do not give fake positives for vehicles parked close to or in double rows. Their performance is quite consistent in any luminosity condition, more stable in long stay parking cases and they are not affected by the closeness of traffic movements including passing bus or heavy trucks.

The nodes provisioning has been greatly improved, presently delivered with default time settings and also unique LoRaWAN identifiers and keys, allowing the registration in the LoRaWAN network server at any one time.

Smart parking devices are recorded in the Libelium Services Cloud Manager prior to the time they leave the factory. They can also be used jointly with the Libelium Cloud Bridge to transfer data directly to any of the compatible platforms. This makes it easier and faster to create any parking management application.