RECORDING OF TAGGED OBJECTS IN A CLOSED ENVIRONMENT

摘要

The invention relates to a method of accounting for tagged objects in a closed environment. The invention features the steps of visually sensing a tagged object entering the closed environment and capturing an image of the entering object, the image including at least an object identifier tag having a sequence of alphanumeric characters. The method then extracts from the identifier tag an entering identifier designation which represents the sequence of alphanumeric characters on the tag and stores that sequence along with other sequences in a list of stored extracted identifiers. The system then senses the tagged object when it exits the closed environment, captures an image of the exiting object and extracts a second sequence of alphanumeric characters representing the object's tag. The exiting object tag is then compared to the stored extracted identifiers to determine a best match, thereby identifying the object and enabling varying operations to be performed. Among the operations are the automatic identification of vehicles leaving a toll highway, the revenue verification and/or automatic charging of vehicles leaving a parking lot, the association of a second identifier, unrelated to the vehicle itself, to deter theft, for example, from an airport parking lot, and the tracking within a closed environment of varying objects in, for example, a container terminal. A particularly advantageous ordered graphing comparison process provides accurate identification even in the face of degraded or occluded tags.