Supports Bluetooth LE connection between gateways
Connect with the Parkiter Bad Homburg app
Nordic Semiconductor announced on the 20th that Macaio, a smart system developer based in Bad Homburg, Germany, has adopted Nordic’s Bluetooth LE solutions, the nRF52832 and nRF51822 SoCs, to implement wireless connectivity for its smart parking restriction solution, 'Parketeer'.

One of the pilot projects currently being pursued by the city of Bad Homburg, Germany, is a smart parking restriction device designed to protect electric vehicles from using designated parking spaces and charging stations. Each parking restraint device is equipped with Nordic’s nRF52832 SoC to support Bluetooth LE connectivity with smartphones with Bluetooth 4.0 or higher for electric vehicle drivers, as well as Bluetooth LE connectivity between adjacent parking restraint devices and gateways powered by the Laird RM186-SM module based on the Nordic nRF51822 SoC.

Since these parking restriction devices are interconnected, even if the parking area is outside the driver's smartphone RF range, a command can be sent to open the desired parking restriction device through a parking restriction device within the range.

The gateway can communicate parking lot available space data with the cloud via LoRaWAN (Long Range Wireless Area Network) technology. This parking restriction device, manufactured by Designated Parking Corp. in the U.S., originally operated with 868MHz remote control but was upgraded to Bluetooth LE to provide additional functionality.

If drivers need to find a parking space or charging station while driving, they can use the 'Parketeer Bad Homburg' iOS and Android smartphone apps to locate available parking spots or reserve a zone for use upon arrival at their destination. When a parking zone is reserved, a request is sent to a gateway via the cloud, preventing other users from accessing that parking space.

When a user approaches a reserved parking space, they connect to the parking barrier via the Parkiter Bad Homburg app using the Nordic SoC's Bluetooth LE wireless connection. Once payment is confirmed, the parking barrier lowers to allow access to the parking space. The parking restriction device transmits this data back to the gateway to update data on available parking spaces on the server via the cloud, allowing other users to know the current availability status.

When the driver returns and leaves the parking lot, pressing 'Stop Parking' on the app raises the parking barrier, and the fee corresponding to the parking time is charged to the customer's account. The driver can also check the time spent parked at the charging station through the app.

Nordic's nRF52832 multi-protocol SoC integrates a 64MHz, 32-bit Arm Cortex M4F processor, 2.4GHz multi-protocol radio technology with -96dB RX receive sensitivity, 512kB of flash memory, and 64kB of RAM. The nRF52832 SoC comes with Nordic's S132 SoftDevice, a Bluetooth 5 certified RF software protocol stack capable of implementing advanced Bluetooth LE applications. The nRF52832 is designed to minimize power consumption through features such as a 5.5mA peak RX/TX current for 2.4GHz wireless technology and a fully automatic power management system that can reduce power consumption by up to 80% compared to Nordic’s nRF51 series SoCs.

"A key factor in our decision to use Nordic's Bluetooth LE SoC was its low power consumption, which prevents frequent battery replacement," said Christoph Schramm, CEO of Macaio. "In addition, the OTA-DFU (Over-The-Air Device Firmware Update) feature supported by the Nordic SoC was also very important to avoid having to disassemble the waterproof parking restraint device every time we upgrade the firmware."

Along with this, Christoph added, “Nordic’s DevZone is a massive community where we could receive significant support during development. Through it, we were able to obtain useful answers to technical problems.”