Vehicle identification system for electric toll collection system

Abstract

A plurality of antennas receives radio wave transmitted from a vehicle which comes in a toll collection area. Each antenna has at least three antenna elements, and the antennas are disposed in the horizontal direction and vertical direction. The signal analyzer analyzes the ID signal included in the received radio wave to identify the vehicle. The direction detector measures the direction of arrival (DOA) of radio wave received by two antennas selected by the antenna selector by way of two-dimensional interferometry principle in terms of the directional angle and depression angle. The location detector calculates the location of the vehicle in the horizontal direction and the height in the vertical direction of the vehicle as a location information based on the DOA of the radio wave measured by the direction detector. The vehicle tracking unit generates the locus data of the vehicle based on the location information calculated by the location detector and the information for identifying the vehicle analyzed by the signal analyzer. On the other hand, the video camera takes a picture of the vehicle which comes in the toll collection area to obtain the picture data. The data correlation unit judges whether the vehicle is a violator vehicle by correlating the picture data and locus data. The controller registers the locus data and picture data of the vehicle if the vehicle is a violator vehicle. On the other hand, the controller collects a prescribed toll from the vehicle if the vehicle is not a violator vehicle.