DESIGN AND FABRICATION OF AUTOMATED CAR PARK ACCESS CONTROL SYSTEM

Car park management in Nigeria is largely manual, inefficient, and insecure, often relying on handwritten tickets and rope-operated barriers. These methods, coupled with an unreliable power infrastructure, lead to significant congestion and safety risks. This project addresses these challenges through the design and fabrcation of a cost-effective, solar-powered, automated car park access control system. The system architecture is based on a Master/Slave configuration using two ESP32 microcontrollers that communicate via the ESP-NOW protocol. The Master ESP32 serves as the central "brain," handling RFID authentication and image capture via an ESP32 camera. Upon an access attempt, the system immediately captures the driver's image and validates the RFID tag against a local database stored on an SD card. This process creates a secure visual audit trail by logging all attempts (granted or denied) with a timestamp and the corresponding image. The Slave ESP32 manages the physical "muscle", controlling the barrier's geared motor and monitoring an ultrasonic sensor for vehicle safety