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IoT in Security: Visitor Car Register

During the 2017 Christmas holiday, I went to Ibadan. I drove through University of Ibadan, the premier University in Nigeria. At the main gate of the institution, a security guard on duty handed me a plastic "tally" as a proof of entry. I think another copied down my car plate number.

I drove through the school: passed by the famous Trenchard Hall, the University Bookshop, the Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Catholic Church,  the Chapel of Resurrection, the Abadina Schools and exited through the gate on Abadina Road. At the gate, the security guard on duty simply collected the same "Tally" I was given at the main gate and that was all. I drove off the grounds of the University.

Four days later, I entered through the Abadina gate, drove through the school and exited through the main gate of the school.

A few questions came to my mind:

  • Is there any reliable information captured that says I passed through the school?
  • 10 years from now, will there still be information about the time, date that a car of similar plate number came in?
  • If someone stole my plate number and used it on a dissimilar vehicle, will there be an alert?
  • Asides a pen-paper data capture of my entry, is there any analytics of the number of vehicles that came into the school at different days/weeks/months of the year?
  • Is there any evidence that shows that I came in through gate A and exited through gate B and how long I was on the University premises for?
  • Is there any record you can within a few clicks know the number of vehicles that drove into the University property at any point in time?
There are so many off the shelf application that can be used to solve these problems and offer additional value. For example, there is a proposal of 3D scanning of a vehicle and its content

IoT Solution
What can be different?
  1. As usual, our IoT tools are: A Raspberry pi (or Pi Zero) and Python is our programming language
  2. The Raspberry Pi is connected with two cameras that are positioned to capture a car's plate number, body colour and driver: 
    source: http://www.dnpsys.com
  3. The RPi can capture the plate number and run it through an OCR as described in my previous post. The plate number is converted from picture to number and saved as text. Furthermore, the image of the driver can be capture and stored too - albeit as a low resolution image.
  4. How about the colour of the car? The image from the camera can be run through an image processor like OpenCV which can be called in Python and image parse through it to determine and the colour of the vehicle.
  5. How do you determine if the vehicle is a sedan, a CRV, truck or articulated vehicle (aka Trailer)? Height and length are very great determinants. Do note that there may be limitations based on the processing capabilities of the RPi.
  6. Once necessary details have been captured, due to processing and communication limitations (if it exists), then only text images are pushed to central servers. A central server is important to ensure that if an IoT node is damaged/stolen, the whole data collected is not lost. Also, it ensures that data captured on IoT node A can be compared with that of IoT node B. 
  7. If the RPi is totally remote, then network for data transfer can be via 3G or 4G adaptors
  8. Once data has been pushed to the central server, any form of analytics can be done including the following: points of entry and exit analysis, time spent analysis
Do note that it is not only University of Ibadan that represents an oppurtunity for IoT improvement, many other schools, malls, clubs, churches, mosques, event centers, government buildings, organisations are places where immense value can be achieved.

Imagine that a car parks in a mall and 5 minutes later, police vehicle arrive to arrest the driver. Simply because the IoT based security system captured the plate number of the car, compared it with information on Police Stolen Vehicle database and then alerts the personnel manning the gate about what it found out.

Imagine the immense possibilities with IoT in security.

Do share your own IoT ideas in the comments section.

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