Íslenska
Access control system for vehicle barriers and doors. Gates are opened via ALPR license plate recognition or a keypad PIN. An outdoor LED matrix display shows plate info and messages. The web interface shows live camera feeds, an access log with recordings, and access code management.
Introduction
Gatekeeper is an access control system for doors and vehicle barriers. A camera reads the licence plate of each arriving car, and the gate opens automatically for licence plates that are in the system. Users can also open doors and barriers by entering a PIN code on a keypad, or in the web interface, where they also see a live feed from a camera. The system is in daily production use at several sites.
This project consists of a network connected control unit (Gatekeeper Controllers) installed at each entry point, a local server that handles camera feeds, licence plate recognition, and provides a web interface (Gatekeeper Cloud), and a custom network connected LED matrix display that can be installed by the vehicle barriers.
Cloud
Everything is managed in Gatekeeper Cloud. You can watch the live camera feeds, open or close gates, and see the health of every component in the system. It communicates with the control modules, the outdoor display, the licence-plate recognition service, and all the cameras. The web interface works well on mobile, so you can open the gates from anywhere.
Every access entry is logged along with a camera recording, the key or licence plate that was used and the result. When access is denied, the log shows why, for example outside the allowed dates, outside the allowed hours or not found. The history can be filtered by gate, key, user, policy, result, and shows an interactive histogram.
In addition, the following features are worth mentioning
Users can configure email alerts that can be triggered only for certain users, gates, or hours. An image from the event is attached to the emails.
Metrics are collected from cameras and controllers every minute. The camera service manages the retention time of recordings and prevents the disk from filling up.
External services can create and modify users and access methods through a REST API.
At the Gate
Each gate has licence-plate recognition (ALPR) and a keypad for PIN codes. A display at the gate tells the driver what is happening, showing the plate and how long access is granted, or turning red if the plate is unknown or expired.
Hardware
The controller was designed and assembled from scratch. It has an ATmega328P microcontroller and a WIZnet W5500 Ethernet controller, a Wiegand interface for card readers (or keypads), 3 inputs for external buttons (or any other trigger) to open the gate, and 4 relays for opening or closing the gate and controlling a red and green traffic light.
Two of the external inputs open the gate unconditionally (even if the network is down) while the third one will ask the cloud. The third button can be configured in the cloud interface (possible modes are enabled, disabled, and timer controlled). The fourth input is used for vehicle detection for license plate access, so that the gate is only opened when a car is in front of the gate (and not further away).
To connect a controller to the cloud, it needs to be connected to the local network. Its web interface can then be opened where a cloud IP and token can be configured.
