Combining Edge and Colour Information for Number Plate Detection

This paper presents a method for vehicle number plate detection which combines edge and colour features of number plates. We concentrate on two key issues of this application: speed and robustness. Our focus is put on detecting parts of a number plate, instead of the number plate itself as a whole. To achieve the target of real-time detection, two simple features based on a redefined vertical edge map are constructed. To address the illumination-sensitive problem of using colour information, a Gaussian weighted histogram intersection (GWHI) method is proposed. The above new ideas compose the major part of the algorithm. Our experimental results demonstrate a promising preliminary result on detecting yellow number plates in terms of detection speed and robustness, which shows the feasibility of the proposed method