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Identify Cars Using Raspberry Pi

Read up about this project on “Smart Gates”)

Smart Gates

Evghenii

35 6,724

• Overview

• Things

• Story

• Description

• The principle of operation

• Preparation

• Telegram bot and script

• Run it

• *I hope that I did not miss anything.

• If you have any questions - do not hesitate to ask

• Schematics

• Credits

• Comments(17)

35

Evghenii

Published June 30, 2017 © GPL3+

Smart Gates

Identify Cars Using Raspberry Pi

BeginnerWork in progress1 hour6,746

[

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Things used in this project

Hardware components

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B

http://www.raspberrypi.org/

×

1

• Buy from Newark
• Buy from Adafruit
• Buy from CPC
• Buy from ModMyPi
• Buy from SparkFun

Relay (generic)

1 Relay for 1 gate

×

2

IP CAMERA

×

1

Software apps and online services

ALPR

Story

Description

The principle of operation:

• The car drives up to the gates.

• Camera reads the car plate numbers.

• Checks the read number with the database; if it finds one, then it opens the gate and lets the car pass.

• Each car at the gates is photographed, then a photo is sent to the Telegram application with the car plate number and its status.

• Telegram bot has the ability to open and close the gates, take a current photo and add an unknown car to the database.

It’s done with OpenCV + Python + Bash + Telegram Bot.

* I’m working now on web-interface which will have the ability to:

1. Open/pause/close the gates

2. Add/Remove/Edit/Block cars

3. Add/Remove/Edit/Block ip cameras

4. Set Gpio number for the relay

5. Set ip camera’s zoom

6. Enable/disable auto open for gates

7. Add/Remove/Edit/Block users, set status and privileges

8. Log for car recognition where you can preview, search cars by date/number and export log in excel format

Preparation

For this you will need an RPI3 with the Ubuntu Mate installed. You can get it here: https://ubuntu-mate.org/download/

Installing ALPR library

The easiest way to install

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y openalpr openalpr-daemon openalpr-utils libopenalpr-dev

Install ImageMagick

sudo apt-get install imagemagick

Installing dependencies for Telegram bot

sudo apt-get install libreadline-dev libconfig-dev libssl-dev lua5.2 liblua5.2-dev libevent-dev libjansson-dev libpython-dev make 
apt-get update 
apt-get -y install python-pip 
pip install pytelegrambotapi 
pip install json

Installing Telegram-cli

Check this link to install and configure telegram-cli in ubuntu.

Relay connection

• Connect relay to RPI 3. In my case I used GPIO23 pin for 1st relay and GPIO26 for the second one.

You can test the relay with shell script, just create a simple sh script and run it:

nano open.sh
chmod +x open.sh
sh open.sh

Paste the code below and run it.

Script code for relay 1:

#!/bin/bash 
echo 23 > /sys/class/gpio/export 
echo out > /sys/class/gpio/gpio23/direction 
echo 0 > /sys/class/gpio/gpio23/value 
ping -c 2 localhost 
echo 23 > /sys/class/gpio/export 
echo out > /sys/class/gpio/gpio23/direction 
echo 1 > /sys/class/gpio/gpio23/value

Script code for relay 2:

#!/bin/bash 
echo 26 > /sys/class/gpio/export 
echo out > /sys/class/gpio/gpio26/direction 
echo 0 > /sys/class/gpio/gpio26/value 
ping -c 2 localhost 
echo 26 > /sys/class/gpio/export 
echo out > /sys/class/gpio/gpio26/direction 
echo 1 > /sys/class/gpio/gpio26/value

Connect relays to gates

Telegram message-send script

• Create .sh script with the following code:
  #!/bin/bash
  to=$1
  msg=$2
  tgpath=/home/user/tg
  cd ${tgpath}
  (sleep1; echo “dialog_list”;sleep 1; echo “msg $to $msg”;) | ${tgpath}/bin/telegram-cli -k -W tg-server.pub

Telegram photo-send script

• Create .sh script with the following code:
  #!/bin/bash
  to=$1
  msg=$2
  tgpath=/home/user/tg
  cd ${tgpath}
  (sleep 1; echo “dialog_list”;sleep 1; echo “send_photo $to $msg”;) | ${tgpath}/bin/telegram-cli -k -W tg-server.pub

Create 2 files for the main recognition script:

touch log.txt
touch numbers.txt

In the numbers.txt - add all the known car plates numbers.

Order of the numbers.txt should be as follows:

YZO169

RFS961

RFS123

ILAI123

RFS872

Car plate recognition script

• 1st it connects to ip-camera and downloads a snapshot.

• then it renames the snapshot.cgi to .jpg file

• Next step is converting(zooming) the image. This step you should configure by yourself. In my case i used “crop 45%” because my camera was placed to high over the gates. So i needed to zoom the photo so the script could recognize the car plate.

• Rest i hope is clear.
  #! /bin/bash
  wget -q http://login:password@ipadress/cgi-bin/snapshot.cgi -O /home/user/Downloads/autocheck/snapshot.cgi
  mv /home/user/Downloads/autocheck/snapshot.cgi /home/user/Downloads/autocheck/snapshot.jpg
  convert /home/user/Downloads/autocheck/snapshot.jpg -gravity Center -crop 45%! /home/user/Downloads/autocheck/output.jpg
  FILENAME=$(alpr -c eu -d -n 1 /home/user/Downloads/autocheck/output.jpg |awk ‘{print %20%0Aif%20grep%20-Fxq%20%22#card=math&code=2%7D%27%20%7C%20awk%20%27FNR%3E%3D2%20%26%26%20FNR%3C%3D4%27%29%20%0Aif%20grep%20-Fxq%20%22)FILENAME” /home/user/Downloads/autocheck/numbers.txt
  then
  echo CAR FOUND!, opening the gates! | while IFS= read -r line; do echo “$FILENAME, $(date) $line”; done >>/home/user/Downloads/autocheck/log.txt
  sh /home/user/Downloads/autocheck/relay-control/open.sh 2> /dev/null
  sh /home/user/Downloads/autocheck/tg.sh xGates “Car Found! Welcome” > log.out 2> /dev/null
  sh /home/user/Downloads/autocheck/tg.sh xGates FILENAME” ]; #if not empty
  then
  echo Unregistered car is at the gates! | while IFS= read -r line; do echo “$FILENAME, $(date) $line”; done >>/home/user/Downloads/autocheck/log.txt
  sh /home/user/Downloads/autocheck/relay-control/open.sh 2> /dev/null
  sh /home/user/Downloads/autocheck/tg.sh xGates “Unregistered car is at the gates!” > log.out 2> /dev/null
  sh /home/user/Downloads/autocheck/tg.sh xGates $FILENAME > log.out 2> /dev/null
  sh /home/user/Downloads/autocheck/tgphoto.sh xGates /home/user/Downloads/autocheck/output.jpg > log.out 2> /dev/null
  sleep 20
  sh /home/user/Downloads/autocheck/relay-control/open.sh 2> /dev/null
  else
  2> /dev/null
  fi
  sleep 1
  exec bash “$0”

Telegram bot and script

Open Telegram app, search for @BotFather and start the chat. Send /newbot command and follow the instructions. After completing the initial steps, you’ll get your TOKEN

• Create python script and save it as bot.py

  -- coding: utf-8 --

import config
import telebot
import os
import time
import requests
import subprocess
import simplejson
import sys
from telegram import InlineKeyboardButton, InlineKeyboardMarkup
from telebot import types
bot = telebot.TeleBot(config.token)
@bot.message_handler(content_types=[“text”])
def any_msg(message):
keyboard = types.InlineKeyboardMarkup()
callback_button1 = types.InlineKeyboardButton(text=”Gate-1”, callback_data=”open”)
callback_button2 = types.InlineKeyboardButton(text=”Gate-2”, callback_data=”open2”)
callback_button3 = types.InlineKeyboardButton(text=”Photo”, callback_data=”photo”)

callback_button3 = types.InlineKeyboardButton(text=”Add car”, callback_data=”add”)

keyboard.add(callback_button1,callback_button2,callback_button3)
bot.send_message(message.chat.id, “Welcome to the xGates”, reply_markup=keyboard)
@bot.callback_query_handler(func=lambda call: True)
def callback_inline(call):
if call.message:
if call.data == “open”:
os.system(“cat /dev/null”)
if call.message:
if call.data == “open2”:
os.system(“cat /dev/null”)
if call.message:
if call.data == “photo”:
os.system(“sh /home/user/Downloads/autocheck/tgphoto.sh xGates /home/user/Downloads/autocheck/output.jpg > log.out 2> /dev/null”)
if call.message:
if call.data == “close”:
os.system(“cat /dev/null”)
if call.message:
if call.data == “add”:
os.system(“cat /dev/null”)
def run(self):
while True:
self.updates()
time.sleep(1)
if name == ‘main‘:
bot.polling(none_stop=True)

• Create in the same directory config.py and paste there your TOKEN which you got from @Botfather.

  -- coding: utf-8 --

token = ‘TOKEN’

Run it

Check all the paths in scripts and run.

sh check.sh
python bot.py

*I hope that I did not miss anything.

If you have any questions - do not hesitate to ask!

Read more)

Schematics

Relay connection

Relay connection

Credits

Evghenii

1 project • 30 followers

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Comments

Please confirm your email before commenting. Haven’t received a confirmation email? Resend. Contact us at help@hackster.io for help.

FransR

3 years ago

;)

• Report

Looks good Evghenii! But please tell me; why do you need 2 relays? Could you tell some more about how you connected these?

• Thank;)

Evghenii

3 years ago

;)

• Report

Hi FransR, i used 2 relays because i got 2 gates.
There was two buttons to open them, i connected these two relay to the buttons output.

• Thank;)

Alin D

3 years ago

;)

• Report

This project is awesome. One question though: gate will close by itself? If yes, after how many seconds. Which line of code I can find those settings?

• Thank;)

Evghenii

3 years ago

;)

• Report

Hi Alin D, thank you. Yes, gate will close after 20 sec, there’s line “sleep 20” before closing.

• Thank;)

Kyaw Thiha

3 years ago

;)

• Report

Hi @Evghenii. This project is really cool.
but there are errors in my condition.
1.I install Respbrrian OS on my Pi and do i need to install Ubuntu mate,
2.when i install ALPR itś conditon is Abort,
3.there is an error also when i install open cv on respbrrian os when i reeach
¨make -j4” cmd.i also use “make -j1” also for one core and it’s doesn’t work.

• Thank;)

Evghenii

3 years ago

;)

• Report

replied

• Thank;)

shonky2

2 years ago

;)

• Report

Hi @Evghenii Great Project! Have you made any updates since you posted this? Were you able to get around to the web interface items that you outlined?

• Thank;)

Adli Carter

a year ago

;)

• Report

Does this project works on pi camera? How do you link the video with rasp pi?

• Thank;)

Evghenii

a year ago

;)

• Report

Yes, but you should change a bit script to capture form RPI camera

• Thank;)

lorikk

a year ago

;)

• Report

@Evghenii nice project man, one question have u managed to finish the web-interface?

• Thank;)

Akhilll

a year ago

;)

• Report

Great project! Can we do this project on raspbian os?

• Thank;)

Evghenii

a year ago

;)

• Report

Yes you can, it’s just easier to install opencv on Ubuntu

• Thank;)

Akhilll

a year ago

;)

• Report

Is ImageMagick an opencv? Because i cannot find opencv commands…

Thanks much

• Thank;)

Evghenii

a year ago

;)

• Report

No , imageMagic is for cropping the image

• Thank;)

Akhilll

a year ago

;)

• Report

Could you tell me Where did we use Opencv and for what??

• Thank;)

Aaron Powell

a year ago

;)

• Report

I’m just about to do this with my electric gates I hope you can help if I get stuck..

• Thank;)

Yukta Vaidya

7 months ago

;)

• Report

Can I get the proper connection diagram of the whole system… including the connection of relay and gate?

• Thank;)

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