AUTOMATIC NUMBER PLATE RECOGNITION

Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) also known as Automatic License plate recognition (ALPR) is the use of different image processing , character recognition and processing algorithms to identify and extract a vehicle registration number from the image of a vehicle. A vehicle registration plate In Kenya is a metal plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identification purposes. The registration identifier is an alphanumeric code consisting of three alphabets staring with the letter K, then three digits and an alphabet at the end. They are other number sequence that are used in Kenya. • Government uses GK • Kenya Army - KA ''KAF - Kenya Air Force 'KN - Kenya Navy • Diplomat uses CD • Parastatals uses the same sequence as public plates but they are normally in blue colors • Councils uses the same sequence as public plates but they are normally in green colors • Motorcycle now use KMCA series • Tricycle uses KTWA series • NGO - KX The license plates are placed on the front or the back of the vehicle. OBJECTIVES General Objectives • Community safety and national security. • Fast and easy search facility for investigative purposes and intelligence effectiveness. • Advanced vehicle tracking • Financial Saving • Information sharing Research Objectives Research into the Principles of Number plate area detection Research into Principles of plate segmentation and feature extraction Research the different applications on ANPR systems that could be applied in Kenya. System Development Objectives The development objectives include: • To Implement plate localization algorithms for the identification of the number plate on a still image of a vehicle • To implement a plate orientation and sizing algorithm • To implement a normalization algorithm • To implement a character segmentation algorithm • To implement an OCR algorithm • To apply Syntactical analysis based on Kenya’s specific rules • To design an interface that displays the captured image and the corresponding number plate