Proceeding of the IEEE

International Conference on Information and Automation

Shenzhen, China June 2011

Vehicle-License-Plate Recognition Based on

Neural Networks
YiQing Liu and Dong Wei Ning Zhang and MinZhe Zhao
Control Theory and Control Engineering Artificial Intelligence
Beijing Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture Tianjin KuGe technology Co., LTD
Xicheng District, Beijing, China Haidian District, Beijing, China
ibahs@163.com infmail@163.com

Abstract - A license plate recognition system based on neural

networks was designed and developed. The system used a neural-
network chip to recognize license plates. The chip combined
video image processing module with neural network module by
using equalized image processing algorithm and network
classification algorithm. A set of interface circuit was developed
for implementing license-plate-number recognition. Experiment
results show the system can guarantee a very low error rate at an
acceptable recognition time. Fig. 1 The topology of the neural network
Index Terms - Neural networks, Vehicle license plate A. Algorithms
recognition, FPGA
The weight between input layer and hidden layer is 1. To
I. INTRODUCTION calculate the values of distance Dni out of hidden layer, the
The recognition of vehicles by the contents of license formula (1) given below is used.
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plates is important in a number of applications such as
managing parking lot traffic, traffic data collection, weight- Dni = ¦ || xi − oi || (1)
K =1
and speed-limit enforcement and collection of motorway
charges. These applications put high demands on the Where xi is the i component of input vector, and i take the
reliability of the license plate recognition system [1]. A neural
value of 0 – 255. oi is the i component of the sample vector
network can be trained with very low error and can perform
well with new data sets. However, a neural network stored in neurons.
implemented by software and running on computers can not Supposing Z i is an input of the output layer unit. The
be defined as truly parallel. As a result, the recognition rate
can hardly meet the requirement. The traditional way for value of Z i can be obtained by multiplying Dni , C i and
license plate recognition using neural networks stay on relating weights Wi as formulas (2).
compute simulation phase [2-3].
In this study, a license plate recognition system was Z i = Wi ( Dni , Ci ) (2)
developed with a neural-network chip named as CogniMem Where C i is the category value. Wi is either 0 or 1 by
[4-5]. The system consists of four parts-image acquisition,
license location, character segmentation and character comparing the value of Dni and Ei which represent domain
recognition. The CogniMem chip is a fully parallel silicon of influence.
neural network, in which the neurons are addressed in parallel. 1 Dni ≤ Eni
The interface circuit between the chip and a computer was Wi = { (3)
implemented with FPGA. 0 Dni > Eni
II. CHIP PRINCIPLES The output layer transforms Z i which is from hidden
The CogniMem neural network chip was developed by layer as below.
Guy Paillet based on ZISC (Zero Instruction Set Computing) y = rankWi ( Dni , Ci ) (4)
chip, which contains 1024 neurons. The topology of the
network is as pictured in figure 1. There are 256 nodes in the According to the descending order of Dni , the
input layer and one node in the output layer. The numbers of corresponding category value of C i is outputting.
nodes in hidden layer are 1024.
B. Study Mechanism
The network is mapped by teaching a series of examples
and labelling them with a category. Each time a set
( X 1 , X 2 ... X 256 , Ci ) presented to the network, the neurons will

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verify. If one of them recognizes ( X 1 , X 2 ... X 256 ) as belonging to
category C, the network will not create a new neuron to store
( X 1 , X 2 ... X 256 , Ci ). On the contrary, ( X 1 , X 2 ... X 256 , Ci ) is not
recognized by any neuron, a neuron will be committed to store
( X 1 , X 2 ... X 256 ) as a reference pattern and Ci as the category. In
addition, the new neuron inherits an influence field
defines its area of attraction or similarity domain. The neurons
will constantly adjust their Ei as follow:
Ei (k ) Dni ≥ Ei (k )
Ei (k + 1) = { (5)
Dni Dni ≤ Ei (k )
When k = 0, Ei (1) = 0x4000.
Dni denotes the distance between the input vector and the
sample vectors.
C. Identify Mechanisms
When a vector is broadcasted to the neural network, all
the neurons calculate their distances between the input vector
and the prototype store in their memory. If the distance of a
neuron is less than its influence field, the neuron "fires" to
indicate that it recognizes "somewhat" the vector and
outputting the correspond category value C i . The similarity
range is expressed with the distance value Dni .
Assuming (X0, Y0, C0) is a prototype stored in neurons as
the Fig.2 shown. If a vector (X1, Y1) falls in the area of the
neuron (X0, Y0), it is considered as belonging to category C0.
If a teacher instructs the neural network that (X1,Y1) belongs
to a category C1, the neuron will store (X0,Y0,C0) and shrink
its influence field so that it no longer recognized (X1,Y1) as
C0.
Fig. 2 Introduce for identify mechanisms
III. SYSTEM STRUCTURE
In this section, it is aimed to give information towards the
system structure. As the Fig.3 shows that the system includes
image sensors, CogniMem chip (CM1K), interface circuits
and PC monitoring module.
Ei which
Fig. 3 Structure of license recognition system
Video from image sensor is sent to the video module of
the CogniMem chip. The feature vector is automatically
extracted by the CogniMem chip from a region of interest
defined by the user. Informations about learning and
recognition are displayed on the screen of the PC. Image
processing and recognition are carried out by the CogniMem
chip, and recognition rate is only related to the knowledge
which is tought to network. There is no need to do more
complex operation for PC and external circuits, so that high
recognition rate and strong stability can be obtained.
A. Image Processing Algorithms
The related image processing algorithms is given in this
section towards recognition process. Fig.4 shows the internal
structure of the CogniMem chip and the grey area is video
module. In this module, image will be processed and stored as
samples in neurons. The algorithms of image processing is
that an image will be segment into 16×16 block, 16 value
obtained by calculating the average pixel of each block are
feature vector of the image.
Fig. 4 The internal structure of the CogniMem chip
B. System Circuit
The hardware system was explained and its block diagram
is given in Fig. 5.
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 license plates recognition graphical user interface (GUI) in
use.

Fig. 5 Block diagram of hardware system

As it’s shown in Fig.5, the circuit includes power unit,

CogniMem chips, A3P1000 gate array, sensor unit and USB Fig. 7 7he license plates recognition GUI in use
communications unit. The power unit is a DC-DC convert A. Training
module and gets 5V voltage from the USB port then changes it The relationship between the category value and character
into 1.2V(for core) and 3.3V(for IO) voltage. The operating is shown in table I. "I", "O", and "Z" were excluded from the
clock frequency of CM1K can go up to 27 MHz. table because "I" is similar to digit "1", "O" is similar to digit
Going through the A3p1000 gate array, the image "0," and "Z" is similar to digit "2."
information from the MT9V023 which is a wide VGA CMOS TABLE I
image sensor is sent to the CM1K chip. A3P1000 is the third- RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE CATEGORY VALUE AND CHARACTER
generation family of Actel Flash FPGAs, contains 1 million Category value 0-9 10-32 33
system gates. The FPGA mainly designed for controlling the A-Z
CM1K chip. ΰExclusion of
Corresponding value 0-9 ࠇ
There USB communication unit is used to connect the the letter "I",
circuit to a PC. The CY68014 chip with an 8-bit single chip "O" and "Z"α
inside supports the high bandwidth offered by the USB 2.0. After the images were loaded to the network while
For convenient operation, graphical user interface (GUI) training, the interesting area frame was moved to the license
is necessary. The frame of new version GUI is shown in Fig.6. plate character. If the character was recognized by the
technology Co., LTD
network, then the category value would be displayed. And if
the character was not recognized, it’s required to label
correspond category value. Repeating the step above until the
2SHUDWLQJ 5HDO7LPH,PDJH 7DUJHW,PDJH
0RGH network was able to recognize all license plate characterV.
B. Results and Analysis
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The statistics of recognition rate, committed neuron
number and recognition time were shown in table II, and the
2WKHUV 2SHUDWLRQ
relationship between recognition rate and committed neuron
number was illustrated in Fig.8.
,QWHUQDOLQIRUPDWLRQ TABLE II
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
Fig. 6 The frame of new version GUI
Committed
In GUI, Images and videos are easily called in and used to Image Recognition Recognition
neuron
train the neural network. In addition, GUI provides a Number rate time
number
visualized method to manage the knowledge base and check 101μS
5 50 14.3%
the domain of influence of each neutral.
10 97 20.1% 101μS
IV. EXPERIMENTS
30 143 86.3% 101μS
100 vehicle license plates were chosen to be used for the 50 237 91.2% 101μS
experiments. +alf of them were selected in random to be
samples for training the neural network and the rest were used
for recognition. Fig.7 demonstrates a screen capture of the

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 need further optimization to improve the generalization ability
of the neural network.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Many thanks to Tianjin Kuga Technologies Co., Ltd
which provides me with funds to research into neural networks
Recognition rate

technologies, and with the opportunity to participate this

project. Without their support, this paper would never be
completed.
REFERENCES
[1] N. Thome, A. Vacavant, L. Robinault and S. Miguet, “A cognitive and
video-based approach for multinational License Plate Recognition”. Machine
vision and application, vol. 22, pp. 389-407, March 2011.
[2] C. Oz, and F. Ercal. "Automatic vehicle license plate recognition using
artificial neural networks." Intelligent Systems Design and Applications,
Committed neuron number pp.23-31. 2003.
Fig. 8 Relationship between recognition rate and [] C. N. E. Anagnostopoulos et al. "A license plate-recognition algorithm for
Committed neuron number intelligent transportation system applications." IEEE Transactions on
According to Fig.8, lots of neurons were committed while Intelligent Transportation Systems, vol. 7, pp.377-392, September 2006.
the recognition rate increases slowly in the early stage, and the [4] General Vision Inc.”CogniMem Manual.” pp.5-20, 2008.
recognition rate increased dramatically in middle and slowed [5] General Vision Inc.”CogniMem Reference Guide.” pp.3-10, 2008.
down at the last stage. The reason for this phenomenon might
be that at beginning the network spent many neurons on
"remember" all characters of license plate, and in the middle
stage the network performed good at recognition. At last, more
neurons should be used to strengthen the network to classify
similar characters and overcome the environment factor.
Traditionally, there are two kinds of licence plate
recognition technology. The one is a totally software system
and it becomes popular for economic reason. Another one is a
hardware system which DSP is used to recognize the plate.
Comparing to existing technology, licence plate
recognition system based on CM1K neural network has the
following advantages:
1) High speed of recognition. The recognition time of
CM1K system was 101s, while most of the existing
technologies need millisecond processing time
2) High stability. The CM1K system performs better in
stability than software system, because most of the circuit was
integrated in the FPGA, and the bottom hardware finished
much amount work of recognition. On the contrary, the
software system is completely dependent on the PC, so any
delay for the PC might make it loss some plates.
3) Low power dissipation. The power consumption of
CM1K chip is about 275 mW at 1.2V / 27 MHz. The typical
consumption of the whole circuit is 750 mW and it’s
significant for making the system be portable.
V. CONCLUSION
In this study, a vehicle license recognition system with a
neural network chip was designed and developed.
Experimental results showed that the recognition rate can
achieved 91.2% by training the network with 50 images and
237 neurons committed. The recognition time was 101s,
which is much faster than existing technology. Regarding
future works, we are investigating how to further improve
tracking performance. First of all, more images of license
plates in difference environment are needed to train the neural
network. And then the software and the hardware system also

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