System and method for recognizing vehicle license plate information

A method for recognizing vehicle license plate information through a vehicle license plate information recognition system, the method comprising:

• detecting a position of a license plate from a vehicle image obtained by imaging a vehicle;
• separating a plurality of characters from a region of the detected license plate in the vehicle image, extracting individual character images, and extracting a license plate type of the license plate according to a predetermined criterion;
• recognizing a license plate character string on the basis of the extracted individual character images and the license plate type;
• and
• outputting the recognized license plate character string,
• wherein the recognizing of the license plate character string comprises recognizing a usage character in the individual character images through type-specific character recognition and universal character recognition, which each employ different classification criteria, and performing one of a process of generating a license plate character string, a process of reexamining a license plate type with respect to an individual character image, and a process of rejecting a result of a character recognition with respect to an individual character image on the basis of a result of comparing usage characters recognized through the type-specific character recognition and the universal character recognition with each other.

A vehicle license plate information recognition system comprising:

• a type-specific character recognizer configured to recognize a type-specific usage character on the basis of an individual character image of a license plate in an image obtained by imaging a vehicle and a license plate type of the license plate;
• and
• a universal character recognizer configured to recognize a usage character on the basis of the individual character image, wherein the usage character is recognized by employing a classification criterion that is different from a classification criterion of the type-specific character recognizer and is a high level criterion including the classification criterion of the type-specific character recognizer,
• wherein one of a process of generating a license plate character string, a process of reexamining a license plate type with respect to an individual character image, and a process of rejecting a result of character recognition with respect to an individual character image is performed on the basis of a result of comparing usage characters recognized through the type-specific character recognizer and the universal character recognizer with each other.