Nathan Faber, a CCIS student majoring in Computer Science with a minor in business, developed an award-winning system that can help people locate parked cars, find empty parking spaces, and even reserve parking spaces in advance. Faber had one of the only physical demos at the research expo and his Car-Where project was selected as the top entry out of 175 submissions.

Faber’s advisor, Professor Ravi Sundaram, came up with the initial idea of using parking meters, motes, and multi-hop networks, and the two have spent the past several years developing and designing the system, which is the subject of Faber’s bachelor’s thesis.

Faber and Sundaram are currently filing three patents on the system. Their next step is to begin talking to parking-meter manufacturers, garage operators, and municipal authorities to see if anyone is interested in turning this project into a real-life parking solution.