IIT Madras Students Designed a System to Recognise Number plates at Toll Plaza

Five second-year students of IIT Madras have developed a vehicle number plate recognition system that can enable gates to open automatically at toll plazas and parking lots.
M. Praveen Kumar, an electrical engineering student, said he had seen hundreds of vehicles waiting to pay the fee at toll plazas and as such vehicles often take more than 30 minutes to cross the toll barrier.
To counter this, the students have come up with their system. This involves a camera being fixed at the toll gate and being connected to a computer that is pre-loaded with customised software to recognise number plates.
“When the vehicle comes for the first time, we will take a picture of the number plate and load it on to the computer. The next time the vehicle comes near the toll plaza, the gate will open automatically,” he said. 
K. Vignesh, a computer engineering student, said they had spent only Rs 2,000 to develop the system. 
“We developed this system in just two months and plan to enhance its capabilities,” he said.
B. Sai Krishna, another team member pursuing computer science, added that their system could replace the manual security system by blocking vehicles that don’t have proper permits to get inside a building.
The students said that they plan to seek the help of the institute’s administration to install it at the main gate to help bolster the safety of the institute.