The ability to photographically record video or still images of license plates and instantly convert the optical data into digital information is known as license plate recognition (LPR).

LPR, also known as automatic number plate recognition (ANPR), is a technology that is frequently used in Europe and is starting to catch on in the Americas for vehicle management operations like ticketless parking (off-street and on-street), tolling, ITS, stolen vehicle detection, smart billing, and many other applications.

License Plate Recognition Software enables operators to instantly capture and associate more data about every vehicle passing a control point by adding the license plate's digital information (along with other data like the vehicle's direction and speed) to the mix:

  • The Actual Event

The time, location, vehicle's direction, and speed.

  • The Vehicles

Origin, limitations, or security warnings.

  • The Driver's Credentials 

Name, license number, and any contact information they may have.

What Are The Uses of License Plate Recognition?

Let's have a look at some examples of how LPR has been used in real-world situations without the need for human intervention. It is a very sophisticated and clever technology.

  • A Traffic Infraction

Police or other law enforcement can use a single camera and the ALPR to detect any traffic infraction committed by a vehicle at a traffic light. Real-time vehicle identification of any stolen or unregistered automobiles is also possible with it.

  • Parking Management: 

Many locations require a lot of human engagement for parking management, however, ALPR allows for complete elimination of this. The parking lot cameras can read license plates at the gate and store them in a video analytics database, or they can only let cars in if the plates are in the database. The plate can be identified once again and charged appropriately at the moment of exit.

  • Tollbooth Payments: 

Manual toll booths on highways get busy and can cause a lot of traffic. Toll booths can automatically collect money by identifying license plates using ANPR.

  • The Smart City

Through the use of license plate recognition, cities may create better traffic-related policies. 

  • Vehicle Access Management

Residences, companies, and governments employ License Plate Recognition to automate and enhance their car access control management in innovative ways.

What about the ANPR, though? In the section after this one, let's examine it.

How does License Plate Recognition - LPR Works?

Once the license plate image has been acquired by the LPR camera, its firmware employs specialized OCR procedures for license plates to convert them into digitized (machine-readable) characters.

However, License Plates are (extremely) dissimilar from one another; the characters aren't even remotely similar! Separate license plate types require a different algorithm OCR law.

To accurately identify a license plate, we must "train" the algorithm to read various plate designs from various kinds of license plates; for example, what would appear to be an O on some plates appears as a 0 in others.

In order for the algorithm to know "what to expect," LPR relies on knowing every potential plate variant and reading the characters in accordance with numerous geographical variances.

4 Phases Of License Plate Recognition 

Although it appears immediate, License Plate Recognition is a 4-stage process. The first two stages are conventional OCR, but phases 3 and 4 are where LPR differs from regular OCR.

  • Localization:

Finding the License Plate within the entire picture, ignoring extraneous information and concentrating on the characters

  • Segmentation:

Separating the particular area that contains each character to make them distinct from one another.

  • Identification:

Character recognition from the above-mentioned zones.

  • Regionalization:

To find ambiguity in seemingly identical characters, use regional syntactical correction (I and 1, O and 0, B and 8, etc.).

What Does It Mean To License Plates Recognition System?

Recognition of license plates enables better cost-effective control.

The key to LPR's success is the fact that it helps both businesses and their customers. Faster, frictionless, touchless parking improves the customer experience while businesses cut expenses and boost revenues.

The most economical approach is License Plate Recognition! It's simple to comprehend, so let's compare:

  • Similar LPR devices

Just set up the program and install the LPR cameras.

  • Various Systems

Only need dedicated servers, additional installations, and embedded transponders (DSRC, RFID, etc.) for LPR

When it comes to the new normality of distances and touchless sanitary rules, LPR is a wonderful solution.

Conclusion

We do need to analyze every type of license plate that is currently available worldwide and incorporate their unique characteristics into our algorithm in order to build a license plate recognition algorithm that can understand all license plates. Special characteristics of each geographical area (country or state) must be taken into account for a proper final judgement.

We should strive for a real-time accuracy rate of 100% in order to make license plate recognition a trustworthy solution; this goal is beyond the scope of human programming:

Imagine being able to instantly and flawlessly identify every license plate from every nation from every angle...