PlateSmart Technologies introduced Powered by PlateSmart™ to let business solution providers add license plate recognition (LPR) functionality to their products easily and cost-effectively.

Mississauga, Ontario, Canada-based Averics Systems Inc. is one of the first to take advantage of this opportunity, having integrated PlateSmart’s award-winning LPR technology into its AvericsUnity™ security management system.

“A key element in any security system is LPR,” said Harmin Riarh, managing director, Averics Systems.

“When we looked to add that functionality, the Powered by PlateSmart concept really made sense to us. It allowed us to take the technology PlateSmart has pioneered and developed and simply integrate it into AvericsUnity. Now our clients have access to all the vehicle data PlateSmart can provide after literally only a few weeks of integration work and testing.”

Launched at the GSX 2019 tradeshow in Chicago, Powered by PlateSmart is built upon AI and deep machine learning.

When integrated with another security business solution such as AvericsUnity, it offers users of that solution the ability to read license plates, their state jurisdiction, vehicle make and vehicle color. Powered by PlateSmart will soon be able to offer vehicle orientation —front, rear or side— as well as vehicle type for even more actionable data.

Averics integrated the LPR technology into AvericsUnity via the Powered by PlateSmart built-in webhook. This straightforward approach allows the PlateSmart LPR processor to gather vehicle data from live IP camera video feeds and pass that data along to AvericsUnity via industry-standard approaches, such as JSON and RESTful web API call.

From there, AvericsUnity determines where the data —and plate images, if the client prefers— are stored. It also manages how that data is presented within the AvericsUnity tool.

“Powered by PlateSmart integration was engineered to be particularly easy,” said Webb Wang, CTO, PlateSmart.

“From start to finish, it’s intended to take weeks, not months, and that’s exactly how it went with AvericsUnity. But if a business solution provider requires something particularly unique, PlateSmart stands ready to create a custom integration.”

The built-in webhook can also use custom headers to communicate any kind of additional information a business solution such as AvericsUnity may require. For example, in situations where plates will be captured from several cameras, the header can identify the camera from which the data originated.

Powered by PlateSmart also embraces the industry’s best information security standards, with support for multiple options of authentication and encryption.

“Powered by PlateSmart has many applications,” Wang said. “Vehicle data can be used for access control in a visitor management scenario. Retailers can use it to identify customers for curbside pickup. It can also be used with parking enforcement tools to validate parking credentials.”

PlateSmart Technologies developed the original software-only license plate recognition (LPR) solution, PlateSmart ARES®, which is compatible with virtually all video management systems (VMS) and IP cameras.

Designed to function as a stand-alone tool or integrate with third-party software and hardware, PlateSmart ARES provides near-real-time actionable vehicle intelligence for complete situational awareness.

The Averics product philosophy is based on developing systems that are open architecture, non-proprietary and that comply with public standards. Through this approach Averics offers clients and integrators greater choice and flexibility in implementing outstanding custom security solutions.