Author : Poorvi Hedau, Shilpa Datar and Ashutosh Datar

Recognition of license number plate (RLNP) is an image processing technique used to identify the vehicle. It is a mass surveillance method that recognizes the vehicle registration plates. It uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to read the license plate. This paper presents a robust method of license plate recognition based on using Template Matching Techniques. This technique is used in many traffic management and security systems such as automatic speed control, tracking stolen cars, automatic toll management, and access control to limited areas. In this paper, we have considered four robust steps as follows: Pre-processing of captured image, Extracting license number plate region, Segmentation and Character Recognition of license number plate. The proposed RLNP technique consists of two major modules: 1) License Plate detection. 2) License number recognition using Template Matching technique. This paper proposes a template matching approach for vehicle license plate number recognition. The results shows an acceptably well recognition rate, with very few errors in alphanumeric character recognition. The accuracy may further be improved by use of complex techniques like ANN, pattern recognition approaches.

Keywords: License Plate Detection, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Character Segmentation, Character Recognition, Template Matching technique

Article published in International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.7, No.5 (Sept/Oct 2017)