HTS Announces Vehicle Identity Recognition (VIR) Suite in Conjunction with License Plate Recognition Systems

February 23, 2010 – Hi-Tech Solutions Ltd. (HTS), a developer and provider of optical character recognition (OCR) computer and vision systems, today announced the VIR (Vehicle Identity Recognition) suite, to be implemented in conjunction with the company’s License Plate Recognition (LPR) systems. The new suite comprises recognition of vehicle manufacturer logo (car model), vehicle body and plate color, special icons on the plate itself (such as handicap) and country or state name. VIR, to be added as an option to the company’s LPR systems, will be launched at InterTraffic 2010, to be held March 23-26 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

VIR allows for comparison of more than one parameter with respect to a given vehicle’s identity and can therefore provide a more complete picture and higher accuracy.

The vehicle logo, color and country or state name recognition capabilities greatly enhance and improve verification and classification of the vehicle and help check correlation between the car type, license plate number, and data stored on police and homeland security databases, allowing an immediate alert when a suspicious vehicle passes through the system. HTS offers an interface that can communicate with local law enforcement agencies as well as national agencies such as the National Crime Information Center (NCIC).

VIR is a valuable contribution to law enforcement and homeland security organizations, helping them to detect vehicles with false license plates, such as stolen cars, people who are trying to evade highway speed cameras or toll collection, people who replace their license plate with a stolen one to steal fuel from gas stations, etc. In controlled areas such as airports, license plate recognition systems with the vehicle logos recognition feature can be installed at access lanes, automatically monitoring the vehicles entering and exiting the area, detecting any discrepancies between the vehicle type and its license plate number.

The suite also increases the efficiency of toll road operators, who can bill for road usage more effectively for toll roads that are used by residents of number of neighboring states or countries.

“VIR is state of the art technology, and special algorithms were developed by HTS’s R&D department,” said Meta Rotenberg, VP Business Development, HTS. “We had to meet many challenges. For example, vehicle manufacturer logos vary in size, shape and color and unlike license plates, car logos can be located in different places on the vehicle, or even separated from the car body and placed on the hood.”

HTS’s proprietary vision-based LPR devices read and identify plate numbers and letters, and record the information in real time for further processing according to customer’s needs and specifications. The LPR system comprises software and hardware, configured to the site specifications.

About Hi-Tech Solutions Ltd. (HTS)
A leading developer and supplier of proprietary optical character recognition (OCR) and computer vision systems for a wide range of applications in the security, automation and management fields for the ports and traffic markets. HTS has successfully implemented commercial Container Code Recognition (CCR) and License Plate Recognition (LPR) systems in ports, traffic and security sectors in 40 countries worldwide, and has established partnerships with top-tier global companies. For more information, visit www.htsol.com .