Novel vehicle information acquisition method using vehicle code for automotive infrared laser radar

In recent years, transportation convenience is improved significantly by the spread of the automobile. However, traffic violation vehicles passing on the signal, hit-and-run, etc. are increasing with the increase of vehicles. To track a violation vehicle, recognition systems of the license plate using the image processing technology and cameras have been developed. However this system becomes expensive and complicated. To solve these problems, we have proposed a recognition method of the vehicle code using infrared laser radar. We set up a one-dimensional code created by reflectors on the vehicle, and acquire the vehicle information by reading the vehicle code by infrared laser radar. It can be constructed inexpensive system by using infrared laser radar. However, there is a problem that the number of code patterns is small, so the system cannot accommodate too many vehicles. In this paper, we propose a new code recognition method using time-sequence processing for infrared laser radar. We create a two-dimensional code by setting different type reflectors on vertical positions. Thereby we increase the number of code patterns. Through experiments, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.