KR20010074253A - High-pass toll gate payment method by smart card and car number plate recognition system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A method for collecting toll road nonstop charges by a system for identifying a smart card and a car license number plate is provided in order that a smart card exchanges data in the close or far distance, so that cars in a toll gate pass rapidly without stop or receipt of charges and the traffic current is improved. CONSTITUTION: In the method for collecting toll road nonstop charges by the system for identifying the smart card and the car license number plate, a smart card(6), a control system(4), a bank network system(8), an optical sensor(2) and the low frequency coil(7) are included. The smart card is located near a RF adapter(1). The control system(4) is connected to a local area network and a main frame computer system and is connected to the bank network system(8) and the antenna of each toll gate(31, 32). The optical sensor(2) detects entry of cars. A camera(5) takes a photograph of the car license number plate. The illumination(9) is installed near the camera(5) for gaining the clear image. An image managing system(51) identifies the number of the car and sends it to the control system(4). The low frequency coil(7) is installed on the floor and sends an extra toll gate identifier.

Description

High-pass toll gate payment method by smart card and car number plate recognition system}

The present invention relates to a non-stop automatic toll collection method of a toll road using a smart card, an RF adapter and a license plate recognition system.

Currently, magnet tickets are used on highways as a means of automatic toll collection. And some toll roads use smart cards. In either case, data can only be sent and received at close or close range, so the driver must stop the vehicle and contact the smart card with the card reader, thereby avoiding nonstop charges. In addition, there is an area where charges are settled by a smart card with a built-in long-range RF circuit. In this case, the cost of smart cards is high by using a multi-channel RF transceiver or spread spectrum transceiver to avoid mutual interference between data transmitted to vehicles passing through multiple tollates in the same area. As a result, smart card dissemination has been an obstacle.

Accordingly, the present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is that a smart card which is commonly used is manufactured for the purpose of contact or exchange of data of a few mm or a short distance of 10 cm. The smart card is a power-free or low power type is a big advantage. The present invention takes advantage of the existing smart card to provide an RF adapter that can automatically collect the highway fee to use without changing the appearance of the smart card or hardware and software, and a method for collecting the same.

Highway toll collection method according to the present invention for achieving the above object is as follows.

a) Toll gate sensor detects vehicle type identification and camera shooting time. b) The camera system acquires an image of the license plate and detects letters and numbers on the license plate. c) The RF adapter receives a toll gate identifier by the low frequency coil. d) The control system generates a unique number that combines the toll gate number and the current year, month, and day and sends it to the RF adapter. Especially in the case of the semen withdrawal gate, the semen withdrawal indicator is included in the identification number. e) At this time, if the vehicle enters the adjacent toll gate at the same time, the control system will time-division the transmission of the unique number. f) In the case of the semen withdrawal gate, the RF adapter withdraws semen from the smart card and sends the withdrawal completion signal generated from the sedentary number to the control system at the time allocated from the semantic number.

For exit toll gates, the procedures in a) to e) are identical. And f) send the unique number received at the entrance tollgate to the control system. g) The control system calculates the fee, regenerates the unique number, and sends it to the RF adapter. h) The RF adapter withdraws the designated amount from the smart card and sends the withdrawal completion signal generated from the unique number to the control system at the time allocated from the regenerated unique number. i) If the amount specified on the smart card does not remain, the vehicle number detected by the camera system will be used to withdraw the charge from the vehicle owner's bank account or notify the vehicle owner of the charge settled.

According to the present invention having the above configuration, the highway fee can be collected non-stop automatically using existing smart cards and RF adapters.

1 is a block diagram showing a toll road non-stop system to which the present invention is applied.

2 is a block diagram of an RF adapter according to an embodiment of the present invention.

3 is a flowchart illustrating an expressway toll collection method using an RF adapter according to an embodiment of the present invention.

<Description of the symbols for the main parts of the drawings>

4: control system 2: vehicle entry and vehicle type detection sensor

1: In-vehicle RF adapter 6: Smart card close to RF adapter

5: camera system 9: lighting system

21: transmitter 22: receiver

23 display 30 microprocessor

24: smart card transceiver unit 25: low frequency identifier receiving unit

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 is a configuration diagram showing an example of a non-stop toll gate system to which the present invention is applied. Referring to FIG. 1, the smart card 6 to which the present invention is applied is placed close to the RF adapter 1 in which the microprocessor of the smallest size is embedded. This RF adapter is placed in the vehicle.

The control system 4 can be used in connection with a local area network and a mainframe computer system as a conventional personal computer. And it is connected to the bank computer network 8 through the public communication network and the antenna is connected to a place where it is easy to send and receive data to each toll gate (31) (32).

The light sensor 2 for detecting the entry of the vehicle is erected at the entrance direction in which the vehicle enters. And the license plate recognition (5) is built in the rear of the toll gate makes it easy to shoot the license plate of the front of the vehicle entering. There is a separate light (9) next to the camera (5) to obtain a clear image regardless of changes in the environment. The image processing system 51 recognizes the vehicle number and sends it to the control system 4.

A separate toll gate identifier loop coil 7 is installed at the bottom.

First, the toll gate-specific light sensor 2 detects large, medium and small types of the vehicle and the camera photographing time point. Synchronized with the light sensor 2, the camera 5 takes a picture of the front part including the license plate of the vehicle. The camera system detects letters and numbers of the license plate and classifies the vehicle from the acquired image. The result of this image processing is sent to the control system 4 for storage. Separately, the RF adapter receives an identifier of the toll gate by the signal of the low frequency coil 7 installed at the bottom of the vehicle passage of the toll gate. Tollgates in the same area have different values for these identifiers, thereby preventing interference of signals with other tollgates during communication with the control system 4. At the end of the transmission of the identifier, the control system 4 generates a unique number combining the toll gate number including the area code and the current year, month, and day, and transmits it to the RF adapter 1. At this time, an identifier is included at the head of the transmission data frame. In the data exchange between the RF adapter 1 and the control system 4, one frequency is transmitted and received, so that the toll gate in the same area receives the data using the same frequency, but the interference of the signal is prevented by the identifier. The unique number is stored in the memory of the RF adapter 1. Especially in the case of the semen withdrawal gate, the semen withdrawal indicator is included in the identification number. When the vehicle enters the adjacent toll gates 31 and 32 at the same time, the control system 4 performs time division transmission with a unique number at a time difference. If the securities withdrawal gate indicator is present in the serial number, the RF adapter 1 withdraws the designated securities from the smart card 6 and sends the withdrawal completion signal generated from the serial number to the control system 4 at the time allocated from the unique number. send. That is, even when the RF adapter 1 transmits data to the control system 4, all the RF adapters 1 use the same frequency, so that the control system 4 transmits the interference and interference between the RF adapters 1. The data will be sent with the allocation of time.

If it is not a semen gate RF adapter (1) is driving the road while storing the unique number. When the vehicle arrives at the exit gate, the RF adapter 1 is assigned a new unique number by the same procedure as the entrance gate. The RF adapter 1 then sends the unique number received at the entrance tollgate to the control system 4. The control system 4 calculates the fee between the toll gates based on the unique number of the entrance gate and transmits it to the RF adapter 1. The RF adapter 1 withdraws the designated amount from the smart card 6 and sends the withdrawal completion signal generated from the unique number to the control system 4 at the time allotted from the regenerated unique number. In this case, if the amount specified in the smart card does not remain, the vehicle owner's bank account is debited or the settlement issuance notice is automatically processed using the vehicle number detected by the image processing system 501.

2 is a block diagram showing the structure of the RF adapter 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Inside the microprocessor 30 is built. The microprocessor 30 includes a data operation processor 301 and a storage ROM 302 for driving programs, a RAM 303 for temporarily storing data, an EEPROM 304 for permanently storing data, and an I / O for external signals. There is / O 305. There is an RF transmitter 21 and a receiver 22 for data exchange with the control system 4. Since the control unit 4 is relatively far from several tens of meters or more, the transmitter 21 and the receiver 22 are designed to be suitable for this.

There is a smart card transceiver unit 24 for data exchange with the smart card 6 and a low frequency identifier receiver 25 for receiving an identifier from the low frequency coil 7 installed at the bottom of the toll gate.

Since the reception antenna 252 of the low frequency identifier receiver 25 comes out of the RF adapter 1, the RF adapter 1 has an antenna connection terminal 251. The low frequency reception antenna 252 is installed at the bottom of the vehicle. The reception antenna 252 reads a constant identifier transmitted from the low frequency coil 7 installed on the ground surface when the vehicle passes the toll gate.

The front part of the RF adapter 1 has a display unit 23. That is, the RF adapter 1 has a structure that can hold the smart card 6, and the display 23 is disposed at the front, and the display unit 23 displays the data transmission / reception status and the remaining amount of the smart card 6. do.

3 is an operation flowchart showing a highway toll collection method according to an embodiment of the present invention.

According to the present invention, it is possible to realize the highway toll collection method that can automatically collect the highway fee using the existing widely spread smart card with the help of the RF adapter. RF adapter is configured without the commercial law requirement of existing smart card, that is, prepaid card or bank credit card, can be easily spread as a simple structure, and has the advantage of integrating and operating various types of smart cards.

The existing smart card is able to exchange short-range data within 10Cm for both contact and contactless, and it is a power-free method. Therefore, the present invention can be used without changing the structure of the existing smart card is very effective. In addition, the RF adapter's radio modulation scheme is designed to enable toll collection of many vehicles at a single frequency or a few fixed frequencies. Therefore, a low cost configuration is possible.

Although the configuration of the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the embodiments described above, the present invention is not limited thereto, and modifications and improvements are possible within the general knowledge of the operator.

Claims (4)

a) using an RF adapter separate from the smart card in the configuration of the non-stop toll gate; b) the configuration of a toll gate control system corresponding to any type of smart card, regardless of its type or configuration, without changing the structure of an existing smart card due to the use of the RF adapter of claim 1-a; c) ease of access and convenience due to the use of the RF adapter of claim 1-a). a) the tollgate control system collectively controls the frequency of the RF adapter of claim 1-a to simplify the communication procedure and reduce the time of frequency channel search occurring in the multi-channel configuration; b) claim by introducing a method using a toll gate identifier by a low frequency coil The control system designates and controls the frequency of the RF adapter of 1-a as a single frequency or several fixed frequencies to realize a lower price than the RF adapter of a multi-channel configuration. a) A configuration in which a low frequency coil is provided for each toll gate as an identifier for each toll gate. a) Internal configuration of an RF adapter or smart card connector with a small microprocessor, an RF transmitter and receiver for data exchange with the control system, a smart card transceiver for data exchange with the smart card, and a low frequency identifier receiver. .