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Endre Toth, director of business development for ALPR experts Carrida,
reveals more about his company’s next-generation cameras and software
March/April 2020 Traffic Technology International
www.TrafficTechnologyToday.com
081
Get the edge
Automatic licence (or
number) plate recognition
(ALPR/ANPR) has been
a cornerstone of traffic
management and enforcement
for many years. But that doesn’t
mean the technology isn’t
evolving. At Carrida, director
of business development Endre
Toth is excited about the
company’s next generation
of cameras – and their edgeprocessing
capabilities
As the resolution of traffic
cameras increases so the size
of each image file is increasing.
With this increase in size comes
a problem – the bandwidth
needed for sending image
files to the cloud for processing
also increases. But there is
a solution available…
“If you do all the processing
locally, at the edge, then instead
of needing to send gigabytes of
images from the camera, you are
transferring only a few bytes –
just the results,” says Toth.
“That’s why I sometimes call
our cameras, unbelievable
compressing machines!”
But that’s not where the
benefits of edge processing end,
as Toth explains: “Our cameras
include not only the ALPR
engine itself, but also an image
server. The electronic shutter
and the camera features are
adjusted automatically, so you
always get the optimal image.
If you wait to look at the
image later, then the damage
is already done – the image
is taken and you can’t improve
it. Instead, on the fly, we
can constantly improve
settings – optimizing them
for the current conditions.”
And all this technology is
contained in one, very compact
unit – the latest version of which
is the Carrida Cam VK003154. It
is waterproof and resistant to
extreme conditions –
functioning just as well in the
deserts of Saudi Arabia as it
does in the freezing Canadian
winter, with on-board heating to
maintain the unit’s internal
temperature. “It doesn’t matter
whether you are in direct
sunshine during the day or
operating in the middle night,
you get the same quality image
all the time,” adds Toth.
Applications
Toth points out that there are
a wealth of applications for
the Carrida ALPR solution,
including enforcement, security,
vehicle repossession, toll
operations and parking.
“For parking applications
you can download the whitelist
forensic security system that’s
cloud based. And they use the
Carrida engine in the cloud to
do that. FLIR has big operations,
in big cities, such as Mexico
City, where they have thousands
of cameras city wide. For
security sometimes they are
looking for a vehicle. That’s
an example of a forensic
application, for which they can
use existing infrastructure.”
Ultimately Carrida creates
its products by listening to the
needs of the industry. Cloud
solutions are available for those
that need them, but its latest
cameras have edge processing
to eliminate storage and
bandwidth limits and on-board
processing for image
optimization. On top of all this
the ambition is to keep costs as
competitive as possible.
“We always try to optimize
the cost,” says Toth. “Cost is
very important in this industry
and that’s also what inspired us
to come up with the new
Carrida Cam VK3154.”
and the blacklist onto the
camera, so it can open up
barriers automatically without
referring to a server,” says Toth.
“The decisions are made using
the on-board processor.
“Repo companies have fleets
of vehicles with ALPR cameras
mounted on them,” he
continues. “They’re trying to
find vehicles with finance
problems. They have a database
downloaded into the vehicle
and when they find red flag on
a plate, they can sell that data
to a bank trying to track down
outstanding debts or assets.”
Ultimately it is our customers
who come up with the
applications. When it comes to
how to use the tech, customers
have the ideas, not us.”
Android platform
Toth may be proud of Carrida’s
hardware and edge-processing
capabilities, but that’s not to say
he can’t still see the value in
cloud usage for particular
applications. The Carrida ALPR
engine is entirely software
based and compatible with the
Android platform, meaning it
can potentially be rolled out in
a huge variety of locations.
“We did it with FLIR,” says
Toth. “FLIR created a new Carrida
To learn more about this advertiser, please
visit: www.magupdate.co.uk/ptti
Below: The new
Carrida Cam
VK003154
If you do all the
processing
locally, at the
edge, then instead of
needing to send gigabytes
of images from the camera,
you are transferring only a
few bytes – just the results”
Endre Toth, director of business development, Carrida
/www.TrafficTechnologyToday.com
/ptti