When it comes to automated vehicle recognition, one size doesn’t come close to fitting all.
To scan and capture common LPR characteristics like color, make, model and license plate number on vehicles coming and going requires certain levels of hardware and software sophistication and attributes in the camera. What’s sufficient to do that with the low-speed traffic of a municipal parking lot may not be enough when you’re interested in four lanes of faster-moving traffic on the streets of a business district. And what works for that business district’s volume of vehicles may falter against eight lanes of highway traffic traveling 80 miles an hour on the local interstate. These scenarios usually call for different cameras.
Beyond that, there are questions of nighttime/low-light operations, power and infrastructure, and the need for cameras beyond those that can be placed permanently in fixed locations. That’s why law enforcement agencies that seek comprehensive LPR coverage often embrace a range of approaches that can include both fixed and mobile solutions.
Many companies can provide both – that’s not rare. Utah-based omniQ – which offers a novel advanced vehicle recognition system powered by its Q Shield software – offers different cameras, or “vision sensors,” for different purposes as well. But it also goes several steps further, providing the ability to identify and automatically cite unregistered and uninsured vehicles, as well as integrate with its other smart parking and access control systems in a tight-woven network that enhances safety across communities and provides significant new revenue streams.
“Many companies begin working with law enforcement by way of stolen vehicles and BOLO lists. We can do that – we’re one of a lot of companies that can do that,” said John Whiteman, omniQ’s executive director of sales. “What’s different with omniQ is two things. One is our cloud-based solution for recognizing unregistered and uninsured vehicles and issuing citations and collecting money from people. And two is, many of these same municipalities have enforcement programs related to their on-street and curb management, and for that they deal with third parties, not traditional LPR companies. We bring that entire portfolio of product under one roof. Communities can use as little as just a camera on a street corner or scale all the way up to having cameras on their police vehicles, issuing citations for overstays at meters, their parking enforcement program, etc.”
For communities that buy in, those initial cameras can lead to a whole lot of force multiplying.
MOBILE OPTIONS SUPPLEMENT FIXED
For law enforcement users, omniQ offers a pair of primary fixed vision sensors – advanced cameras supported by white and infrared illumination and sealed in a durable weather-resistant housing. The QN33 can capture the detail to identify make, model, color and plate at distances up to 85 feet, day or night, and is compatible with both Q Shield vehicle recognition software and omniQ’s SeeControl software for system management.
“It takes the officer out of potentially dangerous situations. You never know who you’re going to pull over or what the result of that stop might be.”
The QN33’s distance capabilities suit it to most road situations, as well as venues like ports, stadiums and border facilities. For even greater range, the QN30 can work at distances of up to 100 feet or more. The company also offers other cameras/sensors for other purposes.
“We have several that are used in all our markets, based on vehicle speed and distance, but those two are the workhorses,” said Whiteman. “The QN33 is the fixed camera you’d put on a pole to capture a vehicle driving down the street 50 or 75 feet away, and that’s augmented by the QN30 for longer distances. They’re different-size sensors with different lenses, and those combine to determine the effective focal distance, whether it’s maximum wideness or an intimate zoom.”
The company can help new users determine the best choice for their circumstances by doing the math of “lane geometry” – calculating heights and distances and angles from lens to capture point – to guide hardware selection.
Where power isn’t available or would be hard to extend, these cameras can be solar-powered, with 4G cellular communications to the Q Shield back office. “Particularly for municipalities, solar now tends to play into the mix,” Whiteman added. The company is pursuing further advances in that area.
Meanwhile, omniQ is well established in the realm of parking enforcement and access control, with broad, comprehensive platforms for harvesting data via mobile devices as well as fixed. Whether wielded by parking enforcement personnel or officers on patrol, its system’s mobile capabilities reap plate numbers and vehicular info from vehicles as they pass by, alerting police and enforcement drivers in real time when they detect one of interest. The relevant citation platform, eCite Pro, also notifies drivers if their plate number is linked to a violation.
“Local law enforcement uses that for driving around the streets and identifying vehicles that are either on the BOLO list, in the wrong location or parked too long in a spot,” said Whiteman. “In some of our municipalities, officers are also tasked with issuing citations for overstay parking, parking in front of a fire hydrant, those kinds of things.”
omniQ’s single and dual mobile LPR cameras have a 12x optical zoom and field of view from about 10–65 feet. Requiring 12 volts of DC power, they are IP68-rated and operate at temperatures from below 0 to more than 120 degrees Fahrenheit. They are roughly 5½ by 2¼ by 3 inches. The associated controller is also small (around 11 by 7½ by 3¼ inches), with a memory of up to 16 gigabytes. For foot patrol the company offers a Windows 10-powered tablet (10½ by 7½ by ¾ inches) amenable to walking.
Whether this kind of enforcement is done by frontline cops or dedicated parking personnel, the integrated support for citation enforcement is a feature unique to omniQ.
YOU NEVER KNOW WHO YOU’LL PULL OVER
While cameras and vision sensors are essential to vehicle recognition efforts, it’s the software that does the bulk of the work.
Q Shield converts the range of law enforcement cameras into extra sets of eyes, identifying make, model, color and license plate and checking plate numbers instantaneously against local and national hotlists. This leads to real-time notifications to officers for urgent cases like missing persons, stolen vehicles and violent crimes. It also automatically initiates the citation process when it flags insurance and registration noncompliance, removing officers from the process entirely. Those cited can contest their infraction or pay it straight to omniQ, which then routes funds to the department in its unique revenue-sharing model.
SeeControl is a management platform for all a department’s vehicle-related activities, providing recognition and alerting and integrating with omniQ’s PERCS citation software, as well as access control and security platforms and third-party solutions. It analyzes captured data and provides key reporting on trends, insights and histories. SeeControl also permits the remote configuration and management of edge computing units and provides automatic monitoring to ensure they work properly.
eCite Pro and eCite Lite (for foot patrols) process the various parking citations associated with vehicles, notifying the owner of violations. Driving the key functions of omniQ’s VRS systems is SeeNN, its AI-based machine-learning algorithm developed to mimic the pattern recognition and decision-making capabilities of the human brain.
omniQ and its machine vision are involved in numerous other related areas, including smart supply and warehouse management, smart security and additional aspects of parking enforcement. That’s a broad base from which to counsel and equip municipalities with an interest in LPR/AVR.
“The first thing I’d suggest is to understand what your challenges are,” said Whiteman. “For law enforcement to protect its community, sometimes it’s not about being proactive – sometimes you have to be reactive and go catch a bad guy. We can help them be reactive to known incidents. And we have a tremendous program for revenue sharing with municipalities that are interested in innovative ways to deploy our technology.”
That’s a stream of funding cities might not otherwise be seeing – and a safer approach for frontline officers, who need not stop, track down and worry with low-level tag and insurance violations.
“It takes the officer out of potentially dangerous situations,” Whiteman added. “You never know who you’re going to pull over or what the result of that stop might be.”
For more information, visit omniQ.
