AUTOMATED VEHICLE IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM OF OFFICIAL CAR IN FEDERAL POLYTECHNIC NEKEDE

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

A vehicle is a mobile machine that transports passengers or cargo. Most often, vehicles are manufactured, such as wagons, bicycles, Motor vehicles - motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, trains, watercraft - ships, boats, spacecraft and aircraft. Land vehicles are classified broadly by what is used to apply steering and drive forces against the ground: wheeled, tracked, and railed. Vehicles are often required to be registered. Registration may be for purely legal reasons, for insurance reasons or to help law enforcement recover stolen vehicles. On motor vehicles, registration often takes the form of a vehicle registration plate, which makes it easy to identify a vehicle. In Nigeria, trucks and buses have their license plate numbers repeated in large black letters on the back. On aircraft, a similar system is used where a tail number is painted on various surfaces. Like motor vehicles and aircraft, watercraft also have registration numbers in most jurisdictions, however the vessel name is still the primary means of identification as has been the case since ancient times. For this reason, duplicate registration names are generally rejected. Registration may be conditional on the vehicle being approved for use on public highways, as in the case of Nigeria. Many Nigeria states also have requirements for vehicles operating on public highways.

This automated vehicle identification system, is software that will assist the security men recognized an official in Federal Polytechnic Nekede. This software is an expert system will be program with the knowledge of someone that is charge of assigning official car to staff in the institution. The software still has a database that will store new information of an official car. After programming, once the user – security men key in the plate number of any car entering the school, the system will be able to identified  if the car it is an official car or not.

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The problem facing some security men and some staff in Federal Polytechnic Nekede is to identify an official car in the school. The security men, especially the new posted one, cannot identify an official car in the institution. These are the more reasons, why I embarked on this research:

1. Lack of training to security men, the management suppose to trained any new recruit security man. 
2. Ignorant of staff and security men to identify an official car.
3. Poor management, The management are too poor to incorporate some normal routine check

1.3     OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The objective of this project work is to develop an automated vehicle identification system of official car in Federal Polytechnic Nekede that will achieve the following:

1. Assist the security men to identify an official car,
2. Indirectly coerce some person in the management to be computer literate.
3. Provide them reliable and easy means on official car identification.
4. Register and management all official car in the school.

1.4     SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The major aim of the project is to design a system that will have all information about any official car in the institution stored and retrieve this information for the purpose of identification.  It focuses on the registration, retrieval and management of information of an official car in the institution.

1.5     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The significance of this project work, an automated identification system of official car in Federal Polytechnic Nekede is;

1. Assist security and some staff to identify official car in the institution.
2. Stores information of any official car in the institution.
3. Management of an official car
4. Provide a complete details of an official car.

1.6     LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

During this research work, there were lots of limitations and they include:

1. Lack of enough information for the design of a new system, due to poor understanding of the effects of the uses of computer system.
2. Error in data collected for the analysis and design of the new system.
3. Distortion due to human factors such as stress, fatigue, sickness and weakness of the body within the period of this project work.
4. Lack of enough funds.

1.7     CONTRIBUTION TO ICT

The contribution of this software to Information and Communication Technology is implementing an expert system software in the security system that will help in identifying an official car automatically. This act will boost ICT in the school and It will also increase the rate of computer literate in the society.

1.8     DEFINITION OF TECHNICAL TERMS

Below are some technical terms uses in this project work:

1. Automated: To control or operate by automation.
2. Expert System: An expert system is a computer program that simulates the judgment and behavior of a human or an organization that has expert knowledge and experience in a particular field.
3. ICT: Information and Communication Technology is often used as an extended synonym for information technology, but is a more specific term that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals), computers as well as necessary enterprise software, middleware, storage, and audio-visual systems, which enable users to access, store, transmit, and manipulate information.
4. Knowledgebase: is a technology used to store complex structured and unstructured information used by a computer system. The initial use of the term was in connection with expert systems which were the first knowledge-based systems.
5. Machine: A mechanical or electrical device that performs or assists in the performance of human task, whether physical or computation.
6. Mobile: Capable of being moved.
7. System: Set of computer components. That is an assembly of hardware, software and peripherals functioning together.
8. Software: Series of instruction that perform a predefined task.  Instructions that cause the hardware- the machines to do work.
9. Vehicle: A conveyance, a device for carrying or transporting substances, objects or individuals.

1.9     ORGANIZATION OF CHAPTERS

This project work is ranges from chapter one to five chapters. Chapter one carries introduction of the topic, background of the study, statement of problem, scope of the study, significance of the study, limitation of the study, contribution to ICT, definition of technical terms and organization of chapters. Chapter two review some related literature review of the project. Chapter three explains the research methodology, the method adopted in doing the project work, analysis of the present system, the demographic variables, the organizational flowchart of the present system, the management structure of the present system, weakness of the present system, achievement of the expected system, data flow diagram of the expected system and high level model of the expected system. Chapter four explain the system design and implementation, its include objectives of the design, control center, specification of software and hardware requirements, output of the new system, algorithm of the propose system, overall data flow diagram of the system, the data dictionary and choice and justification of programming language. Chapter five is the summary, recommendation and conclusion of the work.