A numbers game
Once the sole preserve of the police and governmental agencies in their efforts to deal with traffic law violations and other criminal activity ANPR is increasingly being used to control risk and heighten security at commercial and government sites throughout the Middle East, writes Salim Idris
When it comes to the application of ANPR, there is an ever-growing range of scenarios where this technology is having a positive impact, whether it be the effective control of site access for a large-scale business park to prevent unauthorised entry to commercially critical areas or the monitoring of traffic movements at airports in the region. In fact most observers would agree that ANPR is one of the most pervasive, reliable and commercially viable of all the available content analysis solutions.
Typical end user requirements for ANPR technology are likely to include the potential to readily deal with the diverse range of numberplates found across the Middle East, numberplates which can be retro-reflective, non retro-reflective, embossed and flat and feature different colours and text sizes. Potential purchasers are also likely to be interested the ability of an ANPR solution to identify and record the licence plate details of all vehicles coming into and/or leaving a specific area; the recording of associated video images for a period of time and to save this data for later analysis; the control of access to a site by identifying vehicle license plate details and, crucially, only activating a barrier for approved vehicles, and to generate billing information for parking and traffic monitoring.
In operation, there is considerable flexibility in terms of how ANPR can be deployed, it can for instance be readily integrated with existing CCTV cameras, delivered via specifically designed ANPR cameras or used by the authorities in conjunction with speed/road safety cameras. The underlying ANPR capability may be provided through PC-based systems or, increasingly, by embedded solutions – the approach we advocate – with processing conducted either in a specialised ANPR camera, which has advantages in terms of speed of processing, or by taking CCTV camera images and then using a DVR and a video analytics package to produce the same result.
Where a specialised ANPR camera is being installed, typically this will be in concert with an overview camera (if a suitable CCTV camera is not already in situ) mounted alongside. The overview camera allows a colour image of specific vehicle to be captured for evidential purposes and associated with the licence plate data from the ANPR camera in the same file, so aiding any future prosecution.
A perennial issue with ANPR technology, whatever the application, is how to deal with ambient light from a scene – such as that caused by headlight glare. One approach is to utilise specialised semiconductors built-in to an ANPR camera or DVR and light from an Infra Red (IR) LED array, the result is that ambient light can be removed effectively through processing. So to conclude, with advances in technology, ANPR is becoming an ever more valuable, and realistic, security and risk control measure for a growing number of commercial and governmental sites across the Middle East.
 Salim Idris, general manager ( Middle East), Dedicated Micros. For more information visit the website at www.dedicatedmicros.com (opens a new window)
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