This is the first post in a one week series where I’ll be integrating AWS IoT Core, Amazon Lex, and Amazon Polly into my existing project, S-PARK.
S-PARK started as a passion project: an AIoT-based Smart Parking System combining Arduino hardware, a Flask + MySQL backend, and AI features like predictive analytics and a voice assistant. It already manages parking slots in real time and helps security personnel with insights and automation.
Why AWS?
While the current stack works fine locally, it becomes limited when scaling across multiple parking zones or when adding more advanced AI features. AWS helps bridge that gap with the following services:
- IoT Core: Provides a secure, scalable connection between Arduino devices and the cloud.
- Amazon Lex: Acts as a conversational chatbot that staff can query for slot availability or reports.
- Amazon Polly: Converts chatbot responses into lifelike speech, enabling hands-free interaction.
By moving from AIoT → Cloud AIoT, S-PARK will go beyond a single server setup, gaining cloud-level scalability, accessibility and intelligence.
For today, we’ll lay the groundwork:
Hardware: Arduino Uno + IR sensors + Servo + LCD.
Software: Flask backend, MySQL, voice NLP with NLTK + spaCy, predictive analytics with TensorFlow.
Features: Role-based dashboards, slot tracking, reports, chatbot, and synced web + LCD interface.
Where AWS Fits
IoT Core will ingest real-time slot data from Arduino (via MQTT).
Lex will power the “brain” of the voice chatbot.
Polly will convert text answers into natural speech for security staff.
Preparation for Tomorrow
- Verify AWS credits are active.
- Familiarizing with the AWS IoT Core console.
- Identify the component that we’ll register as a Thing in IoT Core.(hint: It is the Arduino Uno device in the S-PARK repo)
See you tomorrow for Day 2 where we’ll set up our first IoT device in AWS and send the very first S-PARK parking slot update to the cloud.
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