OCR and RFID enabled Vehicle Identification and Parking Allocation System
Gautami Das Asmita Jondhale Aarti Thakare Lalita Gaikwad
Prof. Samadhan Sonavane
{gautami.das, asmita25792, rtithakare, lalitagaikwad27}@gmail.com
Abstract
The available parking management systems re-quire human efforts and manual recording in excel sheets. For huge parking it is a bit hectic to keep track. RFID and OCR enabled system will provide an automated system for parking management. And also it will provide access control by use of boom barriers. It will be an efficient sys-tem. Parking can also be classified on the basis of vehicles. Like if trucks are being parked in parking then it will be called commercial. If only staff vehicles are parked then it will be private and VIP for important people's vehicles. This system saves time and human efforts too. Really efficient for huge parking. It is a secure system. And an access controlled system as boom barriers are used. Vehicles cannot access parking area without per-mission. For companies it is an effortless and the best system. Having ease of access and control. It also contains cameras for surveillance.
Keywords: RFID, OCR, Tag, Parking-lot, Number Plate, Reader
University of Pune, SandipInstitute of Technology and Re-search Centre,Nashik.
1Introduction
RFID (radio frequency identification) is a technology that helps us to identify items through radio waves. It enables wireless data transmission. It consists of tags, readers, computer networks and database etc. RFID includes mostly auto-mated technologies. Which includes RFID readers, RFID writers, RFID, RFID bar scanners etc. Applications such as logistics, supply chain management, transportation, healthcare etc. are using RFID technology efficiently. Various applications are available now, and they use application specific hardware and proprietary protocols.
This technology is older than bar codes. For the _rst time it was used in World War II for airplane identification. In 1994, RFID technology was used by all rail cars in United States for identification. RFID is an old technology. It is better than bar codes. As we have two types of tags. Active tags and passive tags. Passive tags are having
Unlimited lifetime and they are low cost. Does not re-quire its own power supply. Whereas active tags are costly as they require power. Still it has not been used at greater extent in industry, although it has been known for a long time.
The reason is its cost and lack of standardization among the manufacturing companies. It took a long time to be used widely. Wireless storage and automatic retrieval of data are the main benefits of using RFID. This technology is an improvement over the bar code system and conventional identification, tracking, stocking of objects. RFID comes with improved security, supply chain efficiency, cut down on counterfeiting, increase in asset visibility, enhanced inventory control, and automatic stock replenishment. Using RFID reduces manual workloads considerably.
OCR (optical character recognition) is a technology used to recognize characters. OCR takes characters of number plate or captures the number plate.And converts this image into text format which can be edited by almost any text editor. Ms Word or any other. This technology can be used for unregistered vehicles in our application or pro-posed system.
It includes preprocessing, character segmentation and character recognition. [2][1] This technology is efficiently used in abroad. It requires a specific format of number plates. It is also available in different formats. To recognize English and other language number plates. For OCR, thesource is a scanned copy or a snapshot or photo. And destination is ASCII/UTF text, HTML/XML, TEX.[3]
2Literature Review
A lot of work had been done in past on RFID. It is used in many applications. Like shopping, transportation, hospitals, entry control, access control etc. let us review what work has been done in which areas. Let us visit some papers which tell us more about it.
RFID used in shoppingmall(wall mart) In this, the RFID tags are mounted on the shop-ping carts. Shoppers can be guided electronically to and desired products that are tagged with RFID tags. It also helps to track the shopper's location by RFID readers located at different places in the shopping mall. RFID tags also verify the items purchased by shopper. And at the counter it communicates with the billing system and also generates the bill.[8]
RFID used in hospitals The paper which pro-posed this system said. In hospitals RFID tags can be used to identify patients, equipments, new born babies. The patients wear RFID tags on their wrist. Hence can be tracked. It gives automated patient identification. This can be easily implemented in hospitals, healthcare systems, fitness centers etc. it reduces capital required in these areas extensively. Even to keep track of equipments in the hospital RFID can be used. RFID tags can be mounted on almost anything. From a small baby to a big bus. RFID is highly se-cure.[9]
RFID in smart parking system This system gives an automated parking system as we said earlier. Entry in parking, vehicle identification, Parking allocation, exit everything is automated. Using RFID tags on vehicles and readers at the entrance. The system is very much feasible for parking management. With reduced man power and use of technology. RFID makes system more feasible due to its significance in past works. And OCR will prove to be a good technology for the unregistered vehicles. Which can also be said as the disadvantage of previously implemented system.[4]
OCR technology has been used in Abroad for NumberPlate recognition for secure vehicle identifications. And also it is in use in forensic investigation applications. This technology for NumberPlate recognition requires afixed format of NumberPlate to compare it with input. Or it records the changes present in both and processes it.
3Proposed System
3.1Introduction
In this system, all the regular vehicles which visit parking daily or often are registered in the database with required details. And all are tagged with RFID tags which are readable by the reader.
When the vehicle will be coming for parking, at entry point the reader will read the RFID tag and will verify if the entry is valid. If yes, then it will signal boom barriers to open and the vehicle will be allowed to get in.
In case if the vehicle is not regular and came for the first time OCR will perform number plate recognition and will store that information in database. And on exit of that vehicle entry will be deleted from the database. If that vehicle is sup-posed to come every day then it can be registered in regular list of vehicles in database.
3.2Architecture of proposed sys-tem
3.2.1For vehicle identification and parking allocation process
Figure 1: Vehicle identification and parking allocation process
.
In above architecture it is shown that if the vehicle is registered then input of tag will be given to RFID reader. Else NumberPlate as input will be given to OCR. RFID reader will verify and store the date and time of check-in for that vehicle in database and allows check-in. While OCR stores numberplate recognition output information in database.
At the exit point the vehicle is identified again. If it tagged with RFID tag then reader reads it and stores the date and time of check-out for that vehicle tag in database. And if tag is not present then OCR identifies number plate and deletes the entry of that vehicle from database. And vehicle is allowed to check-out.
The working flowchart is as shown.
3.3Mathematical Model
Check-in:
Consider that there is a RFID reader at the entry point and it reads the RFID tags on vehicles.
Let us say that receiver obtains value 'X' for every input tag.
Let 'A' be the set having all 'n' values of vehicles coming at an instance.
now, A=fX1; X2; X3; :::::::::::; Xn
when we retrieve values, X is assigned with X->ID of tag.
Let 'B' be the set having entries for all registered vehicles.
After matching 'X' with value in database it is stored in 'B'.
now, B=B1; B2; B3; :::::; Bn
If not registered then store it in 'U'.
Along with checking we assign an area for parking to vehicles. Say, 'D'.
now, B=D1; D2; D3; :::::; Dn
Each 'X' in B contains Di value.
B=X1; X2; X3; :::; Xn
therefore, X1=fD1g, X2=D2g,X3=D3g,...... ,Xn=Dn
Check allocation of parking space:
Let 'E' be the area where vehicle is parked. Compare 'E' with 'D'.
F=X1; X2; X3; :::::::::::; Xn
X1=E1g, X2=fE2g,...... ,Xn=En
compare 'E' with 'D' of Xi in B{ }.
if E=D then no changes to make, else replace D with E.
Following operations are carried out to up-date sets and get resultant set.
- P1=B intersectionF
- P2=F-B
3. P=P1 union P2
check-out:
Read 'X' value of vehicle which is going to exit and store it in set 'L'.
L=X1; X2; X3; :::::::Xn
U=B-L
U is the updated set.
OCR:
Let an input snapshot of number plate be defined by a 2D function f(x; y),where x,y are coordinates and f is intensity of light at that point.
It is a discrete function, such as x 2N0^ y2N0: where N0 is set of natural numbers including zero.
1. Edge detection :
Periodical convolution of 'f' with specific matrix 'm' to detect various types of edges.
therefore, f'0 (x; y)=f(x; y)*m[x; y]
where m[x; y]represents element at xth column and yth row of matrix m.
Convolution matrix defines each image operation.
Figure 5 shows mapping of source image to destination image.
The pixel represented by y in destination image is affected by X0.....X8.
The formulae is as follows:
y=X0 mo+X1 m1+X2 m2+X3 m3+ X4 m4+X5 m5+X6 m6+X7 m7+X8 m8
3.4Advantages and Disadvantages
The proposed system is very secure and re-quires least human efforts.
Space in database is not wasted by use of OCR for unregistered vehicles.
RFID technology overcomes the limitations of using Barcodes.[10]
The proposed system is reliable, easy to operate and effective for huge parking.
The proposed system is costly.
Installation of proposed system requires RFID and OCR implementation knowledge.
RFID signals can be interrupted by other signals if used at proper frequency.
Cheap RFID tags may wear out after a du-ration of use.
X1 X2 X3 / m1 m2 m3X4 / X0 / X5 / m4 / m0 / m5 / y / 4 Conclusion
X6 / X7 / X8 / m6 / m7 / m8 / The paper focuses mainly on the literature review
And working of proposed system. And how we
Figure 2: (a) source image (b) convolution matrix / can combine and use effectively two technologies
Like RFID and OCR in one system. The proposed
(c) destination image
system overcomes the limitation of existing sys-
Terms. And also shows an innovation in RFID us-
Horizontal and vertical edge detection: / Age. Thus, we can take benefit of two strong and
In-demand technologies.
For this we convolve source matrix with m ho / References
Andmove.
Convolution matrices are smaller than the / [1] Mr. Amrut Ram Selokar , Prof. Shweta Jain,
Actual image / Automatic Number Plat Recognition System
mho= / -1 / -1 / -1 / -1 / using A Fast Stroke-Based Method , Volume-
0 / 1 / 1, Issue-7, April, 2014 .ion
0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / ; mve= - 1 / 0 / 1 / [2] Rajshree Dhruw, Dharmendra Roy , Auto-
1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / - 1 / 0 / 1 / matic Number Plate Recognition System ,
Sobeledgedetector: / IJCSMC, Vol. 3, Issue. 7, July 2014
It uses the following matrices. / [3] Vandini Sharma1, Prakash C. Mathpal2,
Akanksha Kaushik3, Automatic license plate
Gx= / -1 / -2 / -1 / -1 / 0 / 1 / recognition using optical character recogni-
tion and template matching On yellow color
0 / 0 / 0 / ; Gy= / -2 / 0 / 2 / license plate, Vol. 3, Issue 5, May 2014.
1 / 2 / 1 / -1 / 0 / 1 / [4] Dale R.Thompson, Senior Member, IEEE,
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tems Security,IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON
EDUCATION, VOL. 57, NO. 1, FEBRU-
ARY 2014
[5]
After exit the entry is deleted from database. / character-recognition-ocr-encyclopedia.htm
[6] ADVANTAGES / AND / DISADVAN-
TAGES OF / THE / USE / OF DIGI-
TAL PROCESSING / IN / EDUCATION
[7]Suen, C.Y.; Plamondon, R.; Tappert, A.; Thomassen, A.; Ward, J.R.; Yamamoto, K. (1987-05-29). "Future Challenges in Hand-writing and Computer Applications". 3rd In-ternational Symposium on Handwriting and Computer Applications, Montreal, May 29, 1987. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
[8]zeydin pala,nihati inanc ,utilizing RFID for smart parking application UDC,65.011.56 2009.
[9]Sridhar Iyer IIT Bombay, RFID: Technology and Applications, .
[10]Sridhar Iyer, RFID: Technology and Applications, IIT Bombay .
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