Fog Computing-Based System for Decentralized Smart Parking System by Using Firebase

Abstract

The growth of vehicle number is unavoidable whilst the availability of parking is not directly proportional with this condition. Nowadays, many shopping centers do not have sufficient parking spot, causing customers to have difficulty in finding available parking spots. Research has been conducted to tackle the issue of finding available parking spots. Much of this research proposed the narrowband-Internet of things (NB-IoT) as a fog node. For communication purposes, this NB-IoT-based fog node has some shortcomings, such as security and privacy, lower data rate, higher cost in development, dependency with wireless system, and only covers one area. In this research, the fog computing was proposed to decentralize smart parking system by using Firebase to cover several areas or malls in one system and interface. Instead of using NB-IoT, this research employed decentralized local server as a fog node to deliver a fast data exchange. Firestore database (Firebase) was also used to secure, manage, and analyze the data in the cloud. Conjunctively, the Android application was created as a user interface to book and find the availability of parking spots. The Android application was built using Android Studio and implemented authentication to keep the data access secure and private. The testing scenario was done following the design unified modeling language (UML). The research results confirmed that the fog computing system successfully supported the decentralized smart parking system and was able to be implemented for covering several areas or malls in one system.