Speeders busted on film

By Hermann Strass European Representative

ESM drives vehicle-monitoring camera
Drivers do not always obey speed limits. This is not just a peccadillo, especially near schools and dangerous crossings or under bad road conditions. Obeying the speed limit helps utilize available road space more efficiently if every car travels at the same speed. Authorities are using permanently installed and mobile speed camera systems to catch offenders and warn other drivers to heed traffic signs and general speed limits. Today, if a driver gets caught violating the speed limit, it may be due to a sophisticated speed control digital camera operated by an Embedded System Module (ESM) made by MEN, Germany (MEN Micro, Inc. in the United States of America).

In this system, the first camera controlled by an EM4N takes time-stamped pictures of passing cars at a point on the road, while the second camera takes time-stamped pictures at another point about 500 m (1,600 feet) to 100 km (60 miles) farther down the same road. Figure 1, courtesy of MEN, Germany, shows a speed control camera taking pictures of oncoming traffic.

Figure 1

A driver may have slowed down when seeing the first camera and accelerated again after passing it. Even if drivers slowed down again after seeing the second camera, they may have been driving too fast between these two points. The vehicle arrived too early at the second camera, considering the specific speed limit in place between the two points. This type of monitoring has been used for many years in Australia, where traffic officials observe trucks driving to and from major cities or towns with hundreds of miles of flat, desert-like countryside in between without ever leaving their air-conditioned office.

The cameras can monitor several lanes in parallel day and night. Control software in the back office automatically compares pictures of the two cameras using sophisticated algorithms. Data about offenders are compressed, encrypted to become tamperproof, and then automatically downloaded to the office of the law-enforcing authority. Violators are sent an appropriate letter and invoice for a fine. In Europe, the face of the driver must be identified in addition to the license plate number on the car because it is not legally possible to fine a car or its owner without facial and license plate identification. The driver at that point in time must be identified.

The EM4N uses an MPC8245 PowerPC microprocessor because it must operate reliably under adverse environmental conditions. Conformal coating and extended temperature versions (between -40 °C and +85 °C) can be supplied if required by the application. The CPU includes a floating-point unit and a memory management unit. Two Fast Ethernet and two COM ports standard on this ESM board communicate with the outside world. IP loaded into an FPGA generates other I/O and specific functions (for example, camera control, separate watchdog, and interrupt controller). The FPGA on the EM4N implements the camera interface, frame grabbing, compression, and encryption without loading the processor.

The EM4N complies with a long list of environmental standards (EN, IEC, CE, UL, and so on). ESM boards are very small 149 mm x 71 mm (5.8" x 2.8") to fit inside the camera housing. ESMs are complete computers based on PCI that operate stand-alone (busless) or as processor modules on popular platforms like CompactPCI or VME. ESM specifications are available for download at the MEN websites www.men.de and www.menmicro.com.

Other European small form factor news
Kontron has received UL 60950 (United States of America) and CSA C22.2 No. 60950 (Canada) certification for their COM board families, which include boards for the ETX, ETX 3.0, ETXexpress/COM Express, microETXexpress, DIMM-PC, and X-board platforms. Kontron believes itself to be the first company to receive UL certification for COM-type module products. Listings are available at www.ul.com. The company achieved European certification under EN 60950 some time ago.

Digital-Logic, Switzerland has a waterproof mini PC for outdoor usage available in IP54 or IP65 protection versions. A Pentium M 738 powered CPU with all the typical PC I/O interfaces and additional galvanically isolated digital and analog I/O is inside the waterproof enclosure. Either a 2.5" hard disk or two CompactFlash memory cards can be installed. Expansion is available via a PC/104-Plus socket. The computer works within a temperature range between 0 °C and +50 °C. With an optional preheat function, the unit can start working at temperatures of -40 °C and higher.

For more information, contact Hermann at hstrass@opensystems-publishing.com.