JPH04241099A - Maintaining device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To smoothly execute the storage operation for the recognized result of number plate information and the picture in a storage part even while retrieving pictures stored in the storage part, displaying or hard-copying the retrieved picture. CONSTITUTION:The plural storage parts are provided to store the picture for specifying the driver of a car together with the recognized number plate information and by switching these plural storage parts selectively according to the use state, the picture and the recognized result are stored.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a security system that automatically detects stolen vehicles, wanted vehicles, or long-term abandoned vehicles within a specific area such as a paid parking lot.

0002

[Background Art] Recently, technology has been developed to automatically recognize license plate information such as serial vehicle number, classification number, land transportation branch code, pseudonym code, etc. displayed on the license plate of a vehicle (for example, a car). is being developed.

As an example of application of such technology to the security field, for example, an automatic detection device for stolen vehicles and wanted vehicles has already been developed. This system compares the recognition result of the license plate information with the license plate information registered in advance on the center's host computer to identify stolen vehicles and wanted vehicles (for example, criminal vehicles).
automatically detects the

[0004] There is also the detection of long-term abandoned vehicles within a specific area, such as a paid parking lot. This is done by comparing the recognition results of license plate information at the entrance gate and exit gate of a specific area, and confirming that no person entering through the entrance gate and exiting through the exit gate is detected for a certain period of time. This is to detect a vehicle as a vehicle that has been abandoned for a long time.

[0005] In such detection of a vehicle that has been left for a long time, it cannot be determined whether the vehicle has been left for a long time or not until a certain period of time has elapsed. Therefore, after the determination, a vehicle corresponding to the license plate information must be found within a specific area. Furthermore, even if it is assumed that a stolen vehicle or wanted vehicle can be detected instantly, there is a certain time interval before a detected stolen vehicle or wanted vehicle can be tracked and captured. It is possible that they will give up and run away.

[0006] In such a case, if there is an overall image of the vehicle and an image that can identify the driver of the vehicle, such as an image of the driver's face, this will be a powerful clue for finding the vehicle and arranging the driver. Therefore, recently, security devices have been developed that store an overall image of the vehicle and a facial image of the driver along with recognized license plate information and time information. When this security device detects a stolen vehicle, a wanted vehicle, or a long-term abandoned vehicle, it searches for the corresponding stored image based on the license plate information, and displays the entire vehicle image and the driver's facial image on the display. or output as a hard copy.

[0007]

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] As described above, conventional security devices store recognized license plate information, time information, an overall image of the vehicle, and an image of the driver's face in a storage means. However, when a stolen vehicle, wanted vehicle, or long-term abandoned vehicle is detected, the image stored in the storage means is searched based on the license plate information, and the searched image is displayed on a display or output as a hard copy. Therefore, when searching for images in a storage medium,
Alternatively, there is a problem in that when a searched image is displayed or hard-copied, the storage operation in the storage means is hindered.

Therefore, the present invention provides an operation for storing the recognition result of the license plate information and the image in the storage means, even during the search for images stored in the storage means, the display or hard copying of the retrieved images. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a safety device that allows the operation to be carried out without any hindrance.

[0009]

[Means for Solving the Problems] The security device of the present invention includes a detection means for detecting a vehicle, and a first imaging means for capturing a scene image including the license plate of the vehicle detected by the detection means. , second imaging means for capturing an image identifying the driver of the vehicle detected by the detection means;
recognition means for extracting and recognizing license plate information from a scene image including the license plate photographed by the first and second imaging means; A storage means for storing each image and its imaging time information; and a search for an image taken by the second imaging means corresponding to predetermined license plate information from among the images stored in this storage means. The apparatus is characterized in that it has a plurality of storage means, and the images and recognition results are stored by selectively switching between the plurality of storage means depending on the state of use thereof.

0010

[Operation] According to the present invention, there is provided a plurality of storage means for storing an image that can identify the driver of the vehicle together with the recognized license plate information, and these plurality of storage means can be selectively selected depending on the state of use. By switching and storing the images and recognition results, you can search for images stored in the storage means, display the retrieved images, or print a hard copy.
Among other things, the recognition result of the license plate information and the image can be stored in the storage means without any delay.

[0011]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows the configuration of a security device within a specific area, such as a paid parking lot. That is, the entrance vehicle detection section 1 and the entrance imaging section 2 are each installed at the entrance gate of a specific area, as shown in FIG. The entrance vehicle detection unit 1 is configured by, for example, a photo sensor, and detects a vehicle 13 entering a specific area. A vehicle detection signal from the entrance vehicle detection section 1 is sent to a CPU (central processing unit) 9 via a general-purpose bus 110.

The entrance imaging section 2 is configured as shown in FIG. 3, for example. That is, under the control of the CPU 9 that has received the vehicle detection signal, the near-infrared flash device 20 is driven to emit near-infrared flash light, for example, to stabilize lighting conditions or for night illumination, and at the same time, the license plate image, An overall image of the vehicle and an image of the driver's face are captured by television cameras 21, 22, and 23. The plate image capturing television camera 21 is a television camera for capturing a front image of the vehicle including the license plate.
Hereinafter, this image will be referred to as a plate image. The vehicle image capturing television camera 22 is a television camera for capturing an entire image of the vehicle, and this image will hereinafter be referred to as a vehicle image. The facial image capturing television camera 23 is a television camera for capturing a facial image of the driver, and this image will hereinafter be referred to as a facial image.

Images captured by the television cameras 21, 22, 23 are sent to A/D converters 24, 25, 26, respectively.
For example, the image data is quantized into an 8-bit digital image. Each of the quantized images is stored in the image storage section 27.
, 28, 29.

The exit vehicle detection unit 3 and the exit imaging unit 4 detect the vehicle 1 at the exit gate of a specific area, similar to the entrance gate.
3 is detected, and a forward image of the vehicle 13 including the license plate is captured. For example, as shown in FIG. 4, the exit imaging section 4 has a near-infrared flash device 40 similar to the entrance imaging section 2.
, a television camera 41 for photographing plate images, an A/D conversion section 42, and an image storage section 43.

The plate image taken at the entrance gate or exit gate is sent to the number plate information recognition section 5, where the information on the number plate as shown in FIG. 5 is extracted. recognized. Here is the number play
In Japan, as shown in Figure 5, the serial vehicle number a consists of Arabic large numbers of 4 digits or less, the classification number b consists of Arabic decimal digits of 2 digits or less indicating the classification by vehicle type and usage, and It consists of a land transportation branch code c in Kanji or hiragana that indicates the land transportation branch office that has jurisdiction over the location of the base of use, and a usage code d in hiragana or Roman characters that indicates whether the purpose is for transportation business.

The recognition process in the license plate information recognition unit 5 is performed by, for example, a contrast detection process by image differentiation, a binarization process of a contrast image, a connected area analysis of a contrast binary image, etc. The character area is detected and recognition processing such as pattern matching is performed. Regarding recognition processing of such license plate information, for example, Japanese Patent Application No. 2-2
18075 in detail.

The storage unit 6 stores, for example, the recognition result of the license plate information, the imaging time information obtained from the timer device 11, the vehicle image, and the face image as shown in FIG.
Remembered by Matt. Note that the flag information in the figure is set to "0" as an initial state, for example, and when participation is detected at the exit gate, the flag information attached to the corresponding license plate information is set to "1". be done.

The hard copy output section 7 outputs the vehicle image and face image retrieved from the storage section 6 as a hard copy. The general-purpose storage unit 8 is used to store information for general purposes, and its memory map is shown in FIG. In FIG. 7, the arranged vehicle information area is an area where the license plate information of the arranged vehicle is registered, the storage unit status flag area is an area that stores the status of the storage unit 6, and the storage unit address management area manages the address of the storage unit 6. The general-purpose area is an area for storing various other information, and the details will be described later.

The CPU 9 mainly controls the entire apparatus, and includes an internal memory 10 in which the OS and programs reside. Timer device 11
is for obtaining time information. The terminal device 12 is used for inputting operation commands, displaying processing results, notification operations, and the like. The general-purpose bus 110 is a bus used for transmitting general-purpose information such as control information, and the image bus 120 is a dedicated bus for transmitting image information.

In such a configuration, automatic parking fee management processing will first be explained with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. When the exit vehicle detection section 3 detects a vehicle 13 entering the exit gate, the exit imaging section 4 operates to capture a plate image of the vehicle 13. At this time, imaging time information Tout is fetched from the timer device 11 and temporarily stored in a general-purpose area of the general-purpose storage section 8. The plate image taken by the exit imaging section 4 is sent to the license plate information recognition section 5, where the license plate information is extracted and recognized, and the recognition result is sent to the CPU 9.

The CPU 9 compares the recognition result of the received exit gate license plate information with the recognition result of the entrance gate license plate information stored in the storage unit 6, and selects a matching entrance gate. The imaging time information Tin of the entrance gate accompanying the recognition result of the license plate information is read out, and the read entrance gate imaging time information Tout is read out from the imaging time information Tout of the exit gate temporarily stored in the general-purpose storage unit 8. - By subtracting the imaging time information Tin, the staying time in the specific area, that is, the parking time is calculated. Then, the CPU 9 calculates a parking fee from this calculated parking time and sends it to a payment device (not shown) installed at the exit gate. This allows the parking fee to be settled at the exit gate using, for example, a prepaid card or cash.

Next, the arrangement vehicle detection process will be explained with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. In this case, the number plate information of the arranged vehicle is stored (registered) in advance in the arranged vehicle information area of the general-purpose storage section 8. Now, when the entrance vehicle detection section 1 detects a vehicle 13 entering the entrance gate, the entrance imaging section 2 is operated and a plate image of the vehicle 13 is taken. The plate image taken by the entrance imaging section 2 is sent to the number plate information recognition section 5, where the number plate information is extracted and recognized, and the recognition result is sent to the CPU 9.

The CPU 9 compares the recognition result of the received license plate information at the entrance gate with the license plate information of the arranged vehicle stored in the general-purpose storage unit 8, and determines whether matching license plate information exists. In this case, the terminal device 12
A notification operation is performed by display or voice.

Next, FIG. 1 shows the long-term abandoned vehicle detection process.
This will be explained with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. Storage section 6
The license plate information and captured images at the entrance gate stored in the are retained for a certain period of time, but the stored information of vehicles exiting a specific area based on the license plate information from the exit gate is As described above, "1" is set in the flag information. If the flag information is "0", that is, the stored information of a vehicle staying in a specific area, current time information Tnow obtained from the timer device 11 at regular intervals, image capturing time information at the entrance gate, In other words, the flag information is
0", each imaging time information Tin1 to Tinn
If the time difference information exceeds a certain time Th, the terminal device 12 notifies the vehicle as a long-term abandoned vehicle. Note that for vehicles for which a long-term stay has been applied for in advance, the flag information is set to "-1" by a command operation from the terminal device 12, and the vehicle is excluded from the processing.

[0026] Arranged vehicles and long-term abandoned vehicles detected through the above processing are notified by displaying license plate information on the terminal device 12, etc., as described above. Based on the notified license plate information, for example, a security guard searches for the relevant vehicle within a specific area. At this time,
If you have a hard copy of the entire image of the vehicle in hand, it will be a powerful clue. Furthermore, in the case of long-term abandoned vehicles, since the driver has already left the vehicle, a hard copy of the driver's facial image is a useful clue for making arrangements. Therefore, when an arranged vehicle or a long-term abandoned vehicle is detected, the CPU 9
Based on the license plate information, a corresponding vehicle image and face image are retrieved from the storage unit 6, and the retrieved vehicle image and face image are outputted as a hard copy from the hard copy output unit 7.

By the way, the storage operation of the storage unit 6 is affected by, for example, searching for vehicle images and facial images of arranged vehicles or long-term parked vehicles, or by transmitting the searched vehicle images and facial images to the hard copy output unit 7. Congested and delayed. Therefore,
In the present invention, as shown in FIG. 1, the storage unit 6 is configured by a plurality of storage units 61, 62, and 63 (storage units 1 to 3), and the storage units 61, 62, and 63 are switched at the time of search and transmission. This problem is solved by selectively using storage units that are not used for searching or transmission.

That is, the storage status flag area of the general-purpose storage unit 8 is divided into status flag areas corresponding to a plurality of storage units 61, 62, and 63, as shown in FIG. 11, for example. In this case, "1" is set, "2" is set in the search state, "3" is set in the transmission state, and "0" is set in the state where nothing is accessed.

Now, when a vehicle is detected at the entrance gate, the storage status flag areas are sequentially checked from storage units 1 to 3, and the first storage status flag area found that is "0" is changed to "1". After setting, the recognition results of the license plate information and various images are stored in the corresponding storage section. It should be noted that the detection processing of arranged vehicles and long-term abandoned vehicles is performed under separate control from the storage operation.

When searching for an image, the storage unit status flag area is sequentially checked from storage unit 1 to storage unit 3, and after setting the first storage unit status flag area of ``0'' found to ``2'', the corresponding storage unit status flag area is checked. Image search processing is performed on the storage unit. Further, when the retrieved image is to be transmitted to the hard copy output section 7, the storage section status flag area is set to "3" and then the image transmission process is performed.

In this way, when searching for an empty storage section and performing storage processing, a plurality of storage sections 61, 62, 6
For example, in the storage address management area of the general-purpose storage unit 8, as shown in FIG.
By sequentially managing the number 3 and the addresses in the storage sections 61, 62, and 63, it is possible to treat the storage section as if it were one sequential storage section.

In the above embodiment, a photo sensor is used to detect a vehicle, but other vehicle detection means such as an ultrasonic sensor or analysis of a captured vehicle image may also be considered. Further, although near-infrared flash light is used as illumination, permanent light such as a halogen lamp may also be used. Also,
The number of quantization bits of an image is not limited to 8 bits. Furthermore, the storage unit status flag area is not limited to the format of the above embodiment, but may be in any format as long as it represents the operating status of each storage unit. Furthermore, the storage format in the storage unit is not limited to the format shown in FIG. Furthermore, the operation from the terminal device is not limited to commands, but may also include menu selection or voice input. Furthermore, the number of multiple storage units is not limited to three.

Furthermore, in the above embodiment, a case has been described in which the overall image of the vehicle and the facial image of the driver of the vehicle are captured and stored. However, it is not necessarily necessary to capture and store both images, and Any image that identifies the hand may be used.

[0034]

As described in detail above, according to the present invention, there is provided a plurality of storage means for storing images that can identify the driver of a vehicle together with recognized license plate information, and these storage means By selectively switching the image and recognition results depending on the state of use, the storage device can be stored in the storage device, even when searching for the image stored in the storage device, displaying the searched image, or making a hard copy. It is possible to provide a security device that can store the recognition results and images of license plate information without any delay.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a security device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing an example of capturing a vehicle image at an entrance gate.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an entrance imaging section.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an exit imaging section.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the format of license plates attached to vehicles in Japan.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a storage format of vehicle information.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a memory map of a general-purpose storage unit.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating automatic parking fee management processing.

[Figure 9] Flowchart explaining automatic vehicle detection processing
to.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating long-term abandoned vehicle detection processing.

FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram of a storage unit status flag area in a general-purpose storage unit.

FIG. 12 is an explanatory diagram of a storage unit address management area in a general-purpose storage unit.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Entrance vehicle detection unit, 2... Entrance imaging unit, 20... Near-infrared flash device, 21... Television camera for plate image capturing, 22... Television camera for vehicle image capturing, 23
...Television camera for facial image capture, 24-26...A/D
Conversion unit, 27-29... Image storage unit, 3... Exit vehicle detection unit, 4... Exit imaging unit, 40... Near-infrared flash device, 41... Television camera for plate image capturing, 42...
... A/D converter, 43... Image storage section, 5... License plate information recognition section, 6... Storage section, 61-63... Storage section, 7... Hard copy output section, 8... ...General-purpose storage section, 9
... CPU, 10 ... internal memory, 11 ... timer device, 12 ... terminal device, 13 ... vehicle, 110 ... general-purpose bus, 120 ... image bus.

Claims (1)

[Claims] Claim 1: a detection means for detecting a vehicle; a first imaging means for capturing a scene image including a license plate of the vehicle detected by the detection means; a second imaging means for taking an image for identifying a driver; a recognition means for extracting and recognizing license plate information from a scene image including the license plate taken by the first imaging means; a storage means for storing the recognition results of the means together with each image taken by the first and second imaging means and their imaging time information; and a predetermined number plate among the images stored in the storage means. and an output means for searching and outputting an image captured by the second imaging means corresponding to information, the storage means having a plurality of them, and the plurality of storage means being selectively switched depending on the state of use thereof. A security device characterized by storing images and recognition results.