Spot Lot — Autonomous Smart Parking & In-Car Navigation
Project brief
IoT-connected automated parking network with barrier automation and native CarPlay/Android Auto guidance.
Overview
Conceived and built during my university engineering days, Spot Lot set out to solve the chaotic urban ordeal of circling crowded lots searching for vacant parking spots.
I engineered an end-to-end autonomous smart parking ecosystem that lets drivers discover, reserve, and navigate directly into guaranteed spots, later acquiring paying commercial lots and successfully selling the intellectual property to a European mobility firm.
IoT sensor network & automated barrier control
Deployed low-power ESP32 microcontrollers and ultrasonic sensors across parking bays, relaying real-time bay occupancy over lightweight MQTT protocols to a centralized cloud broker.
When a driver approaches their reserved garage, geofencing triggers an automated cryptographic handshake with the lot gateway, raising the barrier gate hands-free with zero ticket dispensing or manual scanning required.
Autonomous barrier gate automation and CarPlay bay navigation interface
Native Apple CarPlay & Android Auto integration
Developed companion integrations for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto that stream bay-level turn-by-turn guidance directly onto the vehicle dashboard display.
If a meeting or lunch runs overtime, drivers receive a push alert 10 minutes prior to reservation expiry, allowing them to extend parking duration with one tap and pay automatically via saved Apple Pay or Google Pay.
Acquisition & commercial exit
After scaling across multi-storey university and commercial garage installations handling over 40,000 monthly bookings, the full hardware-software platform was acquired by a European parking operator to power their municipal infrastructure.
Technologies
Built with modern, production-grade tools focused on long-term maintainability, security, and sub-second performance.
Have a project in mind?
Send an e-mail with as much detail as you can about the project and I'll get back to you with availability and an accurate estimate.