Melbourne Smart Parking: NB-IoT + UWB Sensor Trial

Deployment Snapshot

Field	Value
Client	CDS Worldwide
HQ	South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Industry	Parking management systems manufacturer
Products deployed	IoT Parking Sensor Standard (NB-IoT + UWB, in-ground)
Connectivity	NB-IoT, UWB
Deployment type	Advanced sensor evaluation
Invoice date	May 2024

The Client

CDS Worldwide is an Australian manufacturer and designer of intelligent parking management solutions, founded in 1990 and headquartered in South Melbourne. With 30+ years of industry experience, CDS operates equipment at 300+ sites nationally, processing 750 million annual vehicle movements across airports, hospitals, shopping centres, councils, and universities. The company's portfolio spans licence plate recognition, entry/exit stations, dynamic signage, parking bay sensors, pay stations, and its PARKi mobile app.

CDS has delivered notable projects including the City of Melbourne's electronic guidance system (a world-first), Darwin International Airport, Fiji Airport, Parramatta City Council, and RACV bay sensor guidance systems. The company operates across 9 countries, making it one of the Asia-Pacific region's most established parking technology providers.

The Challenge: Evaluating Next-Generation Dual-Protocol Detection for the Australian Market

CDS's existing parking sensor portfolio monitors hundreds of sites, but the company needs to evaluate emerging dual-protocol technology to maintain its competitive edge in the Asia-Pacific market. The NB-IoT + UWB combination represents a new capability: NB-IoT for long-range cellular occupancy reporting, and UWB (Ultra-Wideband) for high-precision vehicle positioning — enabling not just "is the space occupied?" but "exactly where is the vehicle within the space?"

This dual-protocol NB-IoT parking sensor is particularly relevant for CDS's airport and hospital deployments, where precise vehicle positioning can support enforcement (is the vehicle within the bay lines?) and premium services (guiding drivers to their exact reserved space).

The Solution: Single Advanced Sensor for Technical Evaluation

The deployment included:

• IoT Parking Sensor Standard (NB-IoT + UWB, in-ground) — Advanced dual-protocol variant with 1-year warranty, shipped to Australia with customs HS Code 90330090

The single-sensor order is a technical evaluation piece — CDS is testing the NB-IoT + UWB combination's performance, integration requirements, and suitability for Australian cellular networks and parking environments. For a company processing 750 million annual vehicle movements, the evaluation of a single sensor represents the gateway to potential deployment across hundreds of sites.

The UWB capability makes this sensor order unique in Fleximodo's records — most deployments use NB-IoT or LoRaWAN parking sensor configurations alone. CDS's interest in the dual-protocol variant suggests specific use cases (enforcement, reserved space guidance, or precision analytics) that justify the more advanced hardware.

Fleximodo IoT Parking Sensor Standard In-ground 2.0: Technical Profile

This in-ground parking sensor uses Fleximodo's dual detection technology — a 3-axis magnetometer combined with nanoradar — for highly reliable parking occupancy detection, paired here with the additional UWB positioning layer.

Specification	Detail
Detection method	3-axis magnetic field + nanoradar (dual detection technology)
Detection accuracy	99.96%
Dimensions	115 mm diameter, height 64 mm
Weight	390 g
Connectivity	NB-IoT + UWB (dual-protocol)
Ingress protection	IP68
Impact resistance	IK10
Weight endurance	Up to 8 tonnes
Operating temperature	-40 to +85 °C

A key part of how this magnetometer parking sensor holds its 99.96% accuracy across that -40 to +85 °C range is automatic temperature compensation. Magnetic-field-based detection is naturally sensitive to temperature swings — heat and cold both shift the baseline magnetic signature a sensor reads for an "empty" versus "occupied" space. Fleximodo's firmware continuously recalibrates that baseline as ambient temperature changes, so a sensor sitting in Melbourne's summer heat or a cold hospital car park at night doesn't drift into false occupied/vacant readings. Combined with the nanoradar layer, this is what allows the dual detection technology to hold accuracy steady year-round rather than only in mild conditions.

Fleximodo smart parking technology is deployed in 30+ countries. View all products | BRAUMS — Australian ITS manufacturer with Fleximodo evaluation | Conure Telecom — US parking platform with Fleximodo sensors