Vehicle License Plate Detection for Parking Offenders Using Automatic License-Plate Recognition

Abstract

Vehicles parked illegally on the highway can limit road space and result in congestion. Thus, illegal parking must be monitored and controlled. In this study, a prototype system for detecting the license plates of parking offenders based on image processing was implemented. The first stage in this system is detecting the license plate, then segmenting each character into a separate image. The next stage is converting the character from image to text format, referred to as automatic license-plate recognition. The goal is to send that detected plate license to the database of the authorities, so that the authorities can discover the identity of the parking offender to impose sanctions. In this study, several conditions of acquisition and variations of edge detection methods were tested. Based on the test results, an accuracy rate of 100% was obtained for license plate detection using the Canny method during the morning, with the camera position at 3 meters high, 2 meters of distance, and a 60o angle.