Vehicle registration and identification technology company Tönnjes, license plate manufacturer Kirpestein B.V. Automotive and RFID chipmaker NXP Semiconductor report that they have completed a trial that proves passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID license plates can effectively identify moving vehicles even in the most challenging environments. The three firms put the technology to the test at a Netherlands military base, via a variety of heavy military vehicles moving at high speeds to simulate some of the most difficult circumstances in which license plates might need to be read.
The test was carried out during the course of one year to determine whether agencies, such as vehicle registration departments in the Netherlands and throughout Europe, could employ Tönnjes’ IDePLATE technology—which incorporates an RFID tag into a metal license plate—to identify vehicles as they move through RFID reader portals. Throughout the yearlong field trial, the companies used IDePLATE and IDeSTIX RFID tags made by Tönnjes and containing NXP’s UCODE DNA UHF RFID chips. Tönnjes also supplied integration and software to manage data from the reader, as well as an automated camera. Kirpestein used the IDePLATE specifications to integrate a UCODE DNA chip into each of its license plates utilized during the test. All 100 of the vehicles involved in the testing were fitted with IDePLATE license plates, as well as with IDeSTIX adhesive RFID stickers, which are designed to be attached to windshields.
The automated identification of the military vehicles via RFID- and camera-based data was more than 98 percent successful, according to Olaf Renz, Tönnjes’ managing director.
The IDePLATE license plate and IDeSTIX windshield tag, Renz says, are designed to improve the security and reliability of vehicle registration for governments, by making it easier to read a vehicle’s license plate number, even if that vehicle is moving. Such data would facilitate an agency’s efforts to spot a vehicle not properly registered or sporting fraudulent plates. The technology makes it difficult to counterfeit license plates, the companies explain, since each plate would require an authentic RFID tag read, while the use of an RFID windshield tag can serve as a third license plate that could be compared against a vehicle’s two metal license plates, in order to ensure that the metal plates have not been swapped or counterfeited.
In addition, law-enforcement officers could use the technology to identify cars that are speeding or running red lights. Transportation departments could utilize the system as well, for the purpose of collecting tolls.
When capturing license plate ID numbers via RFID, however, a passive tag needs to be effective. That can be challenging in an outdoor environment with variable weather conditions and vehicles composed of many metallic parts.
Tönnjes and Kirpestein conducted the test to prove that passive RFID technology could operate even under harsh conditions, such as when a tag is applied to military vehicles.
The field trial took place on the grounds of the Opleidings- en Trainingscentrum Rijden (OTCRij)—the Dutch Ministry of Defense’s Driving Education and Training facility in Oirschot—where each military vehicle was equipped with two IDePLATEs, one mounted on the front and another mounted on the rear. In addition, an IDeSTIX RFID sticker was applied to its windshield. The OTCRij was selected because it is one of the largest training and education grounds in the Netherlands, with a wide variety of vehicles, ranging from motorcycles to battle tanks—many of which were tagged for the test.
Two Kathrein RRU4-ELC-E6-KRAI readers, four Kathrein WiRa-30 antennas and an automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) digital camera for redundancy were installed on a gantry spanning a road located on OTCRij’s compound. “We used a digital IP camera developed for ANPR applications,” Renz says. “Besides special technical features—for example, automatically capturing images at day and night—the OCR software for optical character recognition is one of the most important components of an ANPR system.” The readers captured and decrypted data collected from passing tags, then forwarded that data, along with camera images of license plates, to Tönnjes software hosted on a local dedicated server.
Many military vehicles are equipped with additional metal cladding, which makes for a hostile environment for passive RFID tags. The major challenge, Renz recalls, was to ensure the reliable identification and verification of IDePLATE and IDeSTIX tags.
An important feature of the tags, says Maurice Geraets, NXP Netherlands’ managing director, is the security provided by the UCODE DNA chip, which transmits only its unique identification number after authenticating the reader that is sending it a signal. “Only if the reader is allowed to have access to the unique identifier,” he says, “the chip will send the unique identifier, encrypted, back to the reader.” Another challenge, Geraets adds, was to keep the power consumption of the chip low enough that it could operate without a battery. The UCODE DNA chip satisfies both the security feature and the lower power consumption required, he says.
The initial testing of 60 passing vehicles found that 35 of them were properly identified via ANPR camera images (some of the plates were blocked by trailers), and that 49 were identified according to RFID reads alone. Combining the data enabled the identification of 98.3 percent of the vehicles (59 out of 60). The vehicles moved through the portal at speeds of up to 150 kilometers per hour (93 miles per hour).
The total results—based on a year’s worth of data regarding all vehicles passing through the reader portal—have not yet been calculated. “The results we already have were very good,” Renz reports, “and, indeed, we are happy with them.”
Several government agencies in South America are now also preparing to pilot the technology, Renz notes, adding that Tönnjes is currently working to implement a system using IDePLATE and IDeSTIX RFID tags at the Cayman Islands and in Honduras. In addition, two million IDeSTIX labels are already in use in Peru for vehicle-registration purposes.
Tönnjes has been developing an RFID-based license-plate system since 2012, when the company, working with Kathrein and researchers from the University of Bremen, first began testing a prototype of the IDePLATE on cars (see RFID License Plates: A Successful In-Metal RFID Application).
The next step, according to Renz, is to launch and extend pilots in the Netherlands. He says the research team hopes to perform additional testing on highways, and is awaiting positive feedback from the Dutch government agencies (such as those registering motor vehicles) that received the pilot results.