RFID Smart Parking System

About this project

An Arduino at the gate reads an RFID tag with an MFRC522 module, opens a barrier LED, and prints every single read over serial as CSV. bridge.py reads that stream — live, or from a bundled sample log if you have no hardware at all — and turns it into correct ENTER/EXIT records and a live occupancy count in MySQL.

An RFID reader does not report "a card was presented once." It reports "a card is in range," over and over, for as long as a human hand holds it near the antenna — one tap is a burst of reads, not one event. A naive handler that treats every read as one event can flip a car's own status back and forth mid-swipe. This project fixes it two ways: a debounce keyed per UID, so a chattering burst collapses to exactly one event without also swallowing a different car that arrives a millisecond later, and a toggle driven by what the database currently believes rather than what the Arduino's own un-debounced local guess says. Occupancy itself is a COUNT() of live rows, and the README proves — with a real run, not a claim — exactly how a running counter kept alongside it quietly drifts the first time anyone corrects a row by hand.

What you will learn

• Debounce a stream of sensor reads keyed per entity, not with one blanket ignore window
• Drive a status toggle from durable database state instead of trusting a device's local guess
• Compute a live count with COUNT() and prove, by actually running it, why a running counter drifts
• Parse a real serial CSV stream and handle a torn or malformed line without crashing
• Read an SPI protocol from a datasheet and reason through timing with no toolchain to compile against

Before you start

• Comfortable with Python and basic SQL
• MySQL installed and reachable — any recent version
• Optional hardware: an Arduino UNO and an MFRC522 RFID module

New to Arduino? The free Arduino course covers everything this project assumes.

Features

• Per-UID debounce window that survives a chattering multi-read burst, keyed correctly
• Status toggle driven by the database's own record, never by the reader's local guess
• Occupancy computed live with COUNT(), demonstrated — by actually running it — to never drift
• REJECTED_FULL and IGNORED_DEBOUNCE logged, not silently dropped, so nothing is unexplained
• Runs completely with no hardware — a bundled sample serial log replays real Arduino output
• Graceful handling of a malformed or empty-UID row instead of crashing the bridge

Technology stack

Track: IoT & Hardware · Level: Major project

What is included

• parking_gate.ino, bridge.py, schema.sql, and a bundled sample_serial_log.csv, all commented throughout
• A README with the real, reproduced transcript of a full run against MySQL — not a mocked-up example
• Wiring diagram, parts list, and five suggested extensions

Delivered as a 23 KB ZIP. SHA-256 published under Changelog so you can verify it.

System requirements

Operating system

Any OS for bridge.py and MySQL; Windows for the Priodemy Labs simulator

Runtime

Python 3.8+, MySQL 8.x or compatible, Arduino IDE 2.x for the sketch itself

Database

MySQL

Hardware

Optional — Arduino UNO, MFRC522 RFID module, 2 or more RFID cards or fobs

Licence

Frequently asked

Changelog