New project…

Since the last post, DFC Technologies has made changes regarding the project that will be developed. For various reasons, including cost and available resources, the previous proposal was not accepted. However, a different project has been proposed and will be developed: ParkWatch.

This product will keep track of the state of parking meters on a given area. It will also inform the person in charge of surveying the area if the meter’s time limit expires or if the meters have been disabled or tampered with. This is done by installing a device on each parking meter to detect whether a vehicle has been parked near the parking meter.  These parking meters will form a wireless sensor network that will relay the information obtained from the spot to an application running on a server PC to keep track of the meters. Once a parking meter’s fare expires, the device will inform the person patrolling the area via a handheld device that the fare has expired and that they should check on the parking meter to give them an infraction. If the meter detects an unusual action, such as being shaken, it will emit a signal back to the PC to inform that it is being damaged, as well as producing a loud alarm sound to alert nearby officers.

All the tasks related to the development of this project have been already identified and distributed between the team members. Right now we enter the design phase and it is expected to be completed by March 10, 2010. We will keep informing here the decisions made throughout the course of the project.

Fernando Cuadrado