How Does ANPR Cameras Work

8 min readJul 28, 2022

As we go ahead in the age of A.I. more and more devices that either give us either security or comfort are being powered by AI and machine learning. Today Ai is replacing most of the traditional means of working. Most of the common technologies today that gives us convenience is NLP powered virtual assistant devices like “The Amazon Echo(Alexa)” and another kind of device would be a computer vision-powered object detection camera. ANPR is also an object detection camera backed with OCR that recognizes numbers and letters from a distance. so, what is anpr? the full form of ANPR is an automatic number plate recognizing how do they work? we will talk about that below.

ANPR works with the help of optical character recognition or OCR At first it is first trained with raw data and then the ML algorithm is trained to recognize the license plate. Let’s learn how does ANPR camera actually work, in-depth.

Table of Contents

What Is ANPR

If we try to find the simplest way to answer what is ANPR? the answer goes like this, ANPR is a computer vision-powered high-resolution CCTV camera that is packed with machine learning algorithms that is vigorously trained to read numbers and letters Over a distance. ANPR comes as the most accurate subset of computer vision. Once trained and deployed it does not need any more human interaction. The ANPR in India is trained to recognize the standard license plate font it can be customized to read local languages like for example Dubai and Bangladesh it can understand Arabic and Bengali.

Authorities use ANPR in India to automatically read the license plate on moving or stagnated vehicles quickly without error. Some of the cameras with good enough resolution can actually record further than the naked eyes are capable of seeing.

After the video footage is recorded the automatic number plate reader software takes out a bunch of images from the video file and from there it reads the numbers on the licence plate. So if you ask what is anpr the answer will neither be a camera or nor software but the combination of both.

How Does ANPR Work

In order to read the characters that have been captured by the camera, ANPR is coupled with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) which recognizes text from an image. The software is capable of reading number plates out from moving vehicles at high speeds.

Right after the camera takes the images the image processing software detects the characters. verify the sequence of those characters, and convert the number plate image to text.

The ANPR from Kotai includes a camera, a processing unit, and video analytics software that would read the characters on the plate. Our top-of-the-line training process makes our model capable of working all day and night even with fancy fonts of number plates. Here is the step-by-step process on how ANPR actually works

ANPR camera captures the image which contains the licence page

After the plate is detected out of the entire image.

Lastly, OCR comes into play and takes out the text format of the characters from the image.

The data is then processed and the vehicle’s documents are checked from the pre-existing database.

The chunk of data containing the converted characters from images gets stored in databases

So if you ask how does ANPR work? the answer would be “comparing the data from ANPR to the database of the government”.

Top 5 Benefits of Automatic Number Plate Recognition System

Fully Automatic

Unlike another ANPR system in India, Kotai electronics use high-quality components and follow a highly efficient Ai training process using machine learning. This makes our ANPR system in India capable of working in both day and night conditions. High-quality components don’t burn out even after the heaviest usage either in 48-degree summer or in sub-zero temperatures.

Ensuring safety and enforcing the law are the two major reasons why the authorities should go for an Automatic Number plate recognizing system. As catching a law-breaking vehicle is not only a hard thing to do but also dangerous to perform. We often see videos online on how things get out of control when some policemen were trying to do their job of enforcing traffic laws. Using an ANPR in India can keep them safe and make their work easy. the solution from us is a way of supporting their efforts and keeping a watch on who, when and where a traffic law is broken. There are some of the biggest benefits of ANPR in your department.

Proving With Analytics

Another benefit of ANPR would be giving proof of every created challan for verification. Once the data is all recorded and processed the data in the background can be used for getting the traffic flow analytics. Getting hands with the information the authorities can use all the data to make and operate an automatic intelligent transportation system(ITS), Which can help make efficient use of highways and divert the vehicles properly to make the roads less congested and make the people go faster and keeping the roads last for long.

Error Free

Another benefit of ANPR from Kotai is that it gives accuracy the top priority. It recognizes cars and their numbers almost instantly, As soon as it shows up in the camera from here recognizing the vehicle number plate is the basis for fast and seamless vehicle identification. All the things happen in less than a millisecond and one single frame can recognize near amount a hundred vehicle number plates together.

Stand Alone

All the data that it provides requires no need for human interaction which means you will not need to put someone to do the analytical part making it, even more, cost-effective. If you know how to click using the mouse you can most possibly access the recorded and real-time data whenever you want. So in the same cost from that aspect.

We have made it sure that you will not have to rely on any other software and hardware and you can start using it right after buying. You will not need any other external computer. You also will not need any app subscription or licence for our ANPR system in India.

Provides Evidence

On top of everything the automatic number plate recognizing system gives proof of what it is showing. Whenever you need certain footage of something it will show you the specific time the certain footage was taken from the image. Which can be used to prove the claim.

Where ANPR cameras are used

The use of automatic number plate recognition is used for a variety of uses, it is used everywhere vehicles need to be identified, or localization.

Law enforcement Division. Police forces are the first on the list of who would ANPR for law enforcement purposes. Firstly it can be used to check if the vehicle is going according to the traffic rules or not. The ANPR with the help of special OCR technology reads the number plates that can be used to track stolen vehicles and know about their location

Car parking Garages. Car parking management needs to have specially made software to recognize each vehicle differently. Hence, automated number plate recognition is the key to efficient car parking management. ANPR allows parking garages to have automated parking management because every car will be known by its own unique license plate number. Therefore, parking garage users avoid the stress of managing their own tickets and tracking time spent, risking penalties for inaccurate ticket payments or losing their tickets. In addition, such automated surveillance can be referred back to in case of a disagreement. Such parking systems keep track of every vehicle in the facility and ensure complete governance.

Journey time analysis. Journey time analysis (JTA) is a crucial application for authorities to identify passing through vehicles and their time from one node to another. In addition, such analytics allow better route planning for traffic administrators.

Traffic management Authorities. Traffic management is the group of activities where ANPR can offer benefits. ANPR can be used throughout cities to detect overspeeding vehicles, vehicles that drive rashly, or any accidental occurrence. Automatic number plate recognition can be used for measuring and analyzing area-related traffic data of a certain area or an entire city. On a larger scale, traffic management allows insights into traffic congestion for better traffic planning.

Shopping Mall Parking Place. Our ANPR in India is working in Big shopping malls that often face unauthorized parking and security of the cars, leading to hassles for rightful parking spaces or sometimes suspicious activities. Such security risks can be addressed with ANPR technology by ensuring only authorized vehicles are getting inside parking spaces.

Tollbooth records. Though some of the places still use manual tollbooth the inconvenience and mistakes are making them turn to ANPR every day. The autonomous tollbooths consist of a bunch of other technologies along with ANPR systems like Traffic counter & classifier. And other object detection software. Some of the highly advanced tollbooth ANPR systems working in expressways can autonomously read and sent the payment request to the owner’s numbers and the toll can receive online payment and open gates automatically without making vehicles stop.