Recognition Equipment Incorp.

Electrocom Automation

Marion W Neff

George R Mondie

Richard G Van Tyne

Larry L Hilley

Apparatus and method are disclosed for detection of overlapped objects moving along a defined path. A light radiation source directs a light beam toward the path. As an object moves into the light beam, reflected light is received by two light sensors. An edge of an overlapping object moving along the defined path substantially blocks the light reflected from the underlying object from being received by one light sensor. The edges of an overlapping object are detected when a there is a difference in the amount of reflected light received by the light sensors and there exists a substantial rate of change in the amount of reflected light (indicative of a true edge of an overlapping object as opposed to warps, wrinkles, creases, etc. on the surface of an object) received by either light sensor due to the substantial blockage of reflected light by the edge.

Dichotomous scan system for detection of overlapped objects

The present invention provides for a bar code location and recognition processing system. The surface on which the bar code appears is optically scanned and converted to binary digital signals by a digital video processor. The output of the digital video processor is provided to a bar code image processor for location and reading of the bar code. The bar code is located by summing the 'black' pixels in segments of predetermined width for each horizontal scan line, and determining the location of the 'L' pattern characteristic of a digitized image of a bar code summed in this manner. Reading of the binary data corresponding to the bar code is carried out by summing the 'black' pixels in each vertical scan line in a rectangular region generally corresponding to the location of the bar code within the digitized image, selecting a threshold value proportional to the average maxima of these sums, and, by determining which sums substantially exceed and which substantially fall below the threshold values, decode a binary code pattern corresponding to the bar code.

Bar code location and recognition processing system

A circuit utilizing four flip flops and a number of gates is used to prevent character doubling when reading optically with a hand held optical character reader. The character can move partially out of and then back into the scanning view without losing character presence, thereby, preventing character doubling or substitution of characters.

Character doubling eliminator

A lamp control for a hand-held OCR wand having a photosensor array positioned to sense light reflected into the wand through a reading aperture therein. A lamp is carried by the wand for illuminating the field facing the reading aperture. Recognition means connected to the array produces a control state when no light is reflected onto the array and a timer responsive to the control state is operable after a predetermined time delay to reduce the excitation of the lamp. Timer reset means responsive to reset of said control state restores normal lamp excitation.

Wand lamp control

A method and system for automatic optical character recognition wherein a continuous flow of image data is processed at a high scan rate. A two dimensional array of self scanning photo sensors is disposed to read characters located on a writing medium. Analog outputs of the cells of the photo sensor array are converted to a continuous flow of binary signals representing character segments or the absence thereof. Feature codes are generated in a ROM to produce a multi-bit feature code characterizing unique relationships between character segments. For each row and column scanned, a representative feature code is produced with a sequence of such codes representing a complete scan of the array. The features codes are received by a decision network as they are generated by the ROM. The decision network is provided with a multiplicity of nodes, each node being accessible to every other node by a one state change to produce a representative output character code. The multiple character codes which are produced during the movement of a single character across the sensor array are processed by a decision circuit which generates a final character recognition signal. A character presence processor searches for a vertical path between character segments to indicate the presence of a character by locating the beginnings and endings of characters. For certain unique characters having vertical gaps between portions of the character a means is provided within the character presence unit to indicate that the vertical gap is to be ignored and that a character code is not to be transferred to the decision circuit.

Character presence processor

A method and system for automatic optical character recognition wherein a continuous flow of image data is processed at a scan rate high compared to the relative movement of the information-containing field across a sensor array. A two-dimensional array of photosensors is self-scanned to provide a continuous flow of binary character segment and void zone representations which are decoded by reference to a ROM to produce multi-bit feature codes characterizing unique relationships between line segments. For each row or column scanned, a representative feature code is produced with a sequence of such codes representing a complete scan of the sensor array. Successive sequences of feature codes are applied to a decision network having a multiplicity of nodes where each node is accessible to every other node by one state change to produce a representative output character code. The multiple character codes which may be produced during the movement of a single character across the sensor array is then processed by a decision circuit which generates a final character recognition signal.

Character recognition unit

This invention relates to modification and utilization of signals developed by automatic reading systems where a hand-held optical unit scans a data field or alpha-numeric characters, and more particularly, to operations which eliminate redundancy in signals produced by scanning a given data field in either direction. A higher first line accept rate is achieved.

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Euless, TX, United States of America

Marion W Neff