Karabin Embedded Camera
Karabin Embedded LPR Camera
A glance at Karabin
Pooya Fanavaran Kosar (PFK) stands as a prominent player in the realm of computer vision technology. Within PFK, I contributed to the development of Karabin—an Embedded Camera System designed for applications in speed traps and smart parking.
Karabin distinguishes itself with exceptional precision in plate reading and speed estimation.
Karabin Embedded LPR camera is a comprehensive and all-in-one system, including colour and infrared cameras, image processing, control, and power electronic units and also a lighting module specialized for ANPR. The process of LPR is done exclusively and independent of the external processing unit or any other units. In other words, the only prerequisite of the system will be the power supply, and its output will be license plates and images of passing vehicles.
My role in this project:
Karabin distinguishes itself with exceptional precision in plate reading and speed estimation. My involvement extended to programming its ARM microcontrollers and implementing AI and OpenCV algorithms for vehicle detection and plate recognition.
More about Karabin
Karabin Embedded LPR camera is a plug-and-play system with a “Power over Ethernet” option. This means the device starts its job automatically after being connected to the power source. Thus, all the casual issues in utilizing classic LPR systems (based on separate units) have been solved in Karabin. It should be mentioned that this device complies with IP66 (Ingress Protection Marking) standards and the defined operating temperature range is from -30° to 60° for it.
Karabin embedded LPR camera with the “Karabin” brand is a comprehensive system in which all the processes of designing hardware, system development and processors are implemented by experts and a wide range of up-to-date methods of LPR have been considered. It is worth saying that every specialization corresponding to other related hardware or software systems is possible according to full control over all the hardware and algorithms used on this camera.
The Software ANPR core used in the Karabin camera is designed to be completely generic, so it is possible to add different types of license plate structures, fonts and various colours. Also, the ANPR core used in the Karabin camera is capable of identifying many kinds of license plate simultaneously without any quality reduction. A special tool is designed for special and similar characters that are often found in some country's license plates which can recognize similar characters with proper algorithms. For example, similar characters are often used in Iran’s license plates which ANPR core is optimized for identifying them. In addition to characters, various colours and different types of reflections are considered in this camera; therefore, this issue is solved by the consistency between different parts of the camera, lighting and processing. A proper colour image will be produced in the output and flash or pulse lights can be used for lighting during night.
For designing the embedded hardware of this system, a wide range of methods and up-to-date hardware are investigated and tested and the result of these efforts is the youngest wave of technology being detected also utilizing hardware which provides processing algorithm requirements will have the best efficiency and least possible power consumption. Also, the imaging system in this camera has specialized for the LPR process in a way that license plates of vehicles with speeds more than 250 km/h are also possible to be read by using a high frame rate and speed of the shutter.
Vehicles speedometer
Internal embedded camera image processing algorithms are able to determine the 3-D location of the vehicle’s license plate in the 3-D world. So with having the sequence of vehicles’ location in time available, we can extract the car’s speed. Consequently, Karabin embedded LPR camera is capable of becoming an LPR-based speedometer image processing system. But in order to increase the accuracy and stability of performance, we can add a Radar or stereovision module to the system and this combination with a Karabin camera (or a set of them for width paths) will increase the final performance.
Thus by applying a Radar module in the final system, the instantaneous speedometer’s accuracy will be according to Radar technology accuracy and based on the Doppler Effect. So practically factors like LPR errors, physical and environmental conditions, inappropriate plate installation or covering it will not affect the extraction of speed and accuracy. Also, extraction of the 3-D location of a plate from an image is dependent on its installation conditions such as installation angles and a little change in these angles is possible over time. So combining Radars with this system will add the ability to auto-calibration, which removes the need for calibration checkups in short term intervals.
Practically, it is suggested to use LPR based speedometer for extracting the statistical data and traffic management. And in order to law enforcement based on instantaneous speed, Radar module or 3-D image processing should be added to the system. So if an employer intends to determine the speed with a high amount of reliability and only the LPR-based image processing is enough for his work, the Karabin camera will provide one of the best extraction multi-level algorithms for instantaneous speed recognition from a plate.
Vehicle’s weight class recognition
The allowable speed threshold is different for heavy vehicles and light ones on many roads and heavy vehicles (buses, trucks, etc.) passing from a speed line is forbidden in most 3-lane ways; Therefore, in order to achieve the complete efficiency of LPR cameras and record these kinds of offenses for heavy vehicles, the ability to recognize the Vehicle’s weight class will be required. Karabin speedometer camera is capable of recognizing the Vehicle’s weight class, through the application of multiple Radar data method and graphical features of the vehicle, with such accuracy higher than defined standards for speedometer systems.
Also as a more precise solution, if vehicles database based on plates was available, it can be entered to the camera and the camera will be able to detect the vehicle’s class and enforce the speed threshold in less than a second.
Certificate of Europe
The embedded Karabin camera is an industrial system for serious traffic applications in completely operational situations. So, in the process of selecting hardware and implementation of production methods, it is tried to choose the most appropriate components and produce this system through precise and principled approaches. These efforts and precisions have led to achieving the CE (Certificate of Europe) standard and also the technical capability certificate of Iran’s Industrial research organization.
