Automatic License Plate Recognition by Motorola and PIPS

American telecommunications company Motorola and Federal Signal company PIPS Technology has just introduced a new Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) solution, that can be fitted on the Motorola MW810 Mobile Workstations, thus saving space and eliminating additional hardware costs.

“Motorola and PIPS Technology developed a cost-effective and efficient ALPR solution that gives law enforcement an invaluable tool in combating auto theft and other crimes,” said Rod Guy, Motorola director of Mobile Computing Operations, in a statement for the press.

The complete ALPR solution, expected to be available starting this fall, includes Slate cameras, Motorola's MW810 Mobile Workstation, the ALPR expansion board for the MW810, PAGIS in-vehicle software that interoperates with the cameras to capture and read license plates, and BOSS back-end software.

“If ALPR is reading license plates, officers can concentrate on other tasks, which helps us protect the public,” said Sgt. Dan Gomez, Los Angeles Police Department. “What's great about the new system is its small footprint. With more and more devices installed in police cruisers, the trunk can get pretty packed. We also like the smaller cameras, which are not as obvious and work better when we go around corners.”

Part of the ALPR solution, the new Slate camera is less noticeable and does not interfere with a law enforcement vehicle's light bar.

Therefore, the ALPR mobile application automatically captures images of license plates within the camera's view. The numbers are processed using an optical character recognition engine and are compared against an onboard violations data base or hot list.

The system alerts an officer if there is a matching hit and provides vehicle information and other preemptive details for appropriate action. License plates can be automatically read and analyzed every two seconds, which means more than 5,000 plates can be checked in a typical shift.