The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 17, 1998
Filed:
Aug. 31, 1995
NCR Corporation, Dayton, OH (US);
Abstract
A signal extraction and character recognition system is provided for an MICR system using E13B font characters and a magneto-resistive read head. Each character is treated as defining a block comprising a matrix of equal sized zones. Because adjacent characters are separated by space (e.g., non-residually magnetized regions), the read head output signal is used to first identify the start of each character. As the document bearing the characters moves relative to the head, the signal strength from each vertical zone is summed. The relative vertical column signal strength is then compared to the vertical column signal strength for the preceding column to form a ratio set. The ratios are then quantized into one of three levels, depending upon whether R>T.sub.1 (a first threshold, preferably 4/3), R<T.sub.2 (a second threshold, preferably 3/4), T.sub.2 .ltoreq.R.ltoreq.T.sub.1. The patterns of these three quantized levels uniquely identify the 14 characters in the E13B character set. These patterns from the processed output signal from the magneto-resistive head are compared with the contents of a look-up table (or the equivalent) containing patterns for the 14 characters in the E13B font to identify the character being read.