Libyan Licenses Plate Recognition Using Template Matching Method

Abstract

License plate recognition (LPR) applies image processing and character recognition technology to identify vehicles by automatically reading their license plates. The work presented in this paper aims to create a computer vision system capable of taking real-time input image from a static camera and identifying the license plate from extracted image. This problem is examined in two stages: First the license plate region detection and extraction from background and plate segmentation to sub-images, and second the character recognition stage. The method used for the license plate region detection is based on the assumption that the license plate area is a high concentration of smaller details, making it a region of high intensity of edges. The Sobel filter and their vertical and horizontal projections are used to identify the plate region. The result of testing this stage was an accuracy of 67.5%. The final stage of the LPR system is optical character recognition (OCR). The method adopted for this stage is based on template matching using correlation. Testing the performance of OCR resulted in an overall recognition rate of 87.76%.