Gradient-driven parking navigation using a continuous information potential field based on wireless sensor network

Wireless sensor networks can support building and transportation system automation in numerous ways. An emerging application is to guide drivers to promptly locate vacant parking spaces in large parking structures during peak hours. This paper proposes efficient parking navigation via a continuous information potential field and gradient ascent method. Our theoretical analysis proves the convergence of a proposed algorithm and efficient convergence during the first and second steps of the algorithm to effectively prevent parking navigation from a gridlock situation. The empirical study demonstrates that the proposed algorithm performs more efficiently than existing algorithms. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.