It’s time to take the previously built traffic monitoring system and spice it up by making it really smart. We’ll connect it to the internet and, by accessing an open-source image processing service, we’ll display the number plate of the detected car. The project continues on from part one, simply by adding the Camera Module.

The full article can be found in The MagPi 50 and was written by Ioana Culic.

You’ll need

• Wyliodrin STUDIO
• SS441A Hall sensor
• Camera Module
• 220Ω resistor
• 16×2 LCD
• Potentiometer
• Jumper wires
• Breadboard

STEP-01 Connect the Camera Module

First of all, we will start with the previously built system that detects cars passing by using the Hall sensor (see part one). The next step is to connect the camera in order to take a picture of each car passing by the sensor.

The Raspberry Pi board has a port specially designed to connect the camera. It’s located between the HDMI port and the 3.5mm headphone jack. We need to place the side of the cable with the silver connections towards the HDMI side of the port.

STEP-02 Create an OpenALPR account

For this application, we’ll use a web service in order to extract the number plate from the pictures taken with the Pi Camera. The web service is OpenALPR; it allows us to upload pictures and get details such as the car model, colour, and licence plate.

In order to use the service, we need to create an account on openalpr.com, which requires a valid email address. We have to confirm the email address, then we can log in and use the service.

Once logged in, we go to Cloud API and check the Cloud API credentials. We will need the secret key later on.

STEP-03 Update the application

We will start with the streams application that we created previously.

To make the code more modular, we’ll create our own new subflow. Go to the Options menu in the top-right of the workspace and select Subflows > Create Subflow. Once the subflow is created, we select the edit properties option and name it car passed. We also set the number of outputs to 1.

The code we have to insert in the subflow is the one created in the previous article, except the counter, which is missing. The final behaviour is that each time a car passes, the node outputs a message.

STEP-04 Take a picture of the car

The node connected to car passed is a Python node. It’s similar to the function node, but it allows us to write code in Python instead of JavaScript. The Python code initialises the connection to the Pi camera, waits for five seconds to finish initialising and calibrating the camera, then it takes the picture and stores it as /home/pi/image.jpg.

The piece of code uses the PiCamera module. However, this module is not installed on the Pi by default. In order to install it, we need to open a terminal window and type the following command: sudo pip install picamera

STEP-05 Recognise the number plate

Once the picture is saved, we’ll access a web service to process it. The read image file node parses the file and, further on, sends a message storing the file’s contents in a buffer.

Next, we send a POST request to OpenALPR. For this, we use a function node. There, we store the image file in a variable under Base64 encoding, then we create a new payload consisting of a JSON structure.

The JSON asks for the secret_key and for a list of processing tasks you need the service to do. After the payload is created, it goes to the http request node, which will do a POST request at the following address: api.openalpr.com/v1/recognize.

STEP-06 Print the number plate

The request returns a JSON structure under a string format. We use the JSON node to obtain a structure containing the plate.results property. That is a list of possible plate numbers, the first element being the most likely to be correct.

Next, we create a function to extract the first element of the list and get the plate property. That is a string representing the plate number. We use the print function to display it on the LCD.
We can test the prototype by placing a picture of a number plate in front of the camera, while passing a magnet next to the Hall sensor.

Code listing

You can download the new code from GitHub. You'll need to add this to part one's code