M G Niketh , 08ec33

AUTOMATIC LICENSE PLATE RECOGNITION (ALPR)

INTRODUCTION
Reading a license plate is the first step in determining the identities of parties involved in traffic incidents. An efficient automatic license plate recognition process may become the core of fully computerized road traffic monitoring systems electronic fee collection solutions surveillance devices safety supervision systems.

It is important that the recognition accuracy of such a process is very high. Tracking and registering dangerous behavior in traffic may be used for prosecuting offenders.

ASSUMPTIONS

Input is an image of a stationary Car. Only the most common type of license plates (single line) will be dealt with. The license Plate has a White background with text written in Black.

PROCEDURE

License-Plate Recognition System consists of following main modules: License plate detection, Character segmentation and Cleaning phase Classification phase

LICENSE PLATE EXTRACTION

The license plate region is characterised by a row of transitions from dark to light and vice versa (we call such a transition an edge). Algorithm

First Convert from RGB to grayscale

Generate edge image corresponding to grayscale image ( Sobel edge detection ) Perform row profiling to determine the Y coordinates of license plate region . Segment the edge image along this (y1-y2 region) Perform column profiling to determine the X coordinates of license plate region . Segment the grayscale images along the X and Y set of coordinates so obtained above.

More edges here

Row profiling Y region

Column profiling X region

SEGMENTATION PHASE

Column that contains part of a character is darker than a column that contains the background of the license plate . Algorithm Perform Column profiling . ( Multiple broad peaks obtained for different characters ) Segment the images along the lines between the peaks , to obtain character bitmaps .

CLEANING PHASE

Removal of all dark pixels from the character bitmap that do not belong to the characters. Eg. Black bars above and below the characters ,dirt spots, or nuts and bolts. Algorithm Convert from grayscale to binary Remove all rows and columns containing only white or only Black pixels , or say (99 % white, black pixels ) Remove all small groups of black pixels .

The cleaned character bitmaps. All dark pixels that are not part of the character are removed

CLASSIFICATION PHASE (FEATURE DETECTION)

Determine the character type from the character bitmap obtained based on the unique features each character possesses . Algorithm

Perform the row profiling to obtain row peaks Perform the column profiling to obtain column peaks. Find number of junctions of the character. Find number of end points of the character.

2 column peaks + 3 row peaks

The character could be any of {5,6,8,9,B,G} 1 End point Row(end point) is higher than row(junction). Thus character is 6 + 1 junction

TEMPLATE MATCHING
Alternative solution to the classification phase is Algorithm

The character bitmap is contrast enhanced . All the character bitmaps are normalised and fit into a box of the size of the standard templates . Find cross correlation (measure of similarity) between the set of templates and the obtained character bitmap The character is matched to the one with the highest CF value .

TEMPLATE
DATABASE

DRAWBACKS

DRAWBACKS
The algorithm so discussed fails to properly differentiate between (B,8) (0,D) (2,Z). The algorithm assumes that there are not more than 1 candidate for license plate region .

SOLUTION:
Use the Aspect ratio of the standard license plates to obtain the right candidate among many ) Compare the edge density (number of edges per unit area) of the various candidates .The highest one is the most appropriate one .

CONCLUSION

What is trivial for the human eye may appear a very difficult task for the computer, but still computer vision is very powerful tool that provides us the capabilities to perform very useful operations as the one we implemented in this project. Application

Parking lot management Automatic toll collection enforcement Traffic enforcement statistics Border surveillance Stolen vehicle search