Este trabalho apresenta um estudo sabre reconhecimento visual de caracteres através da utilização das redes neurais. São abordados os assuntos referentes ao Processamento Digital de Imagens, aos sistemas de reconhecimento de caracteres, e as redes neurais. Ao final é apresentada uma proposta de implementação de um sistema OCR orientado ao reconhecimento de caracteres impressos, que utiliza uma rede neural desenvolvida especificamente para esta aplicação. O sistema proposto, que é denominado de sistema N2OCR, possui um protótipo implementado que também é descrito neste trabalho. Em relação ao Processamento Digital de Imagens são apresentados diversos temas, abrangendo os assuntos referentes à aquisição de imagens, ao tratamento das imagens e ao reconhecimento de padrões. A respeito da aquisição de imagens são destacados os aspectos referentes aos dispositivos de aquisição e os tipos de imagens obtidas através destes. Sobre o tratamento de imagens são abordados os aspectos referentes a imagens textuais, incluindo: halftoning, geração e modificação de histograma, limiarização e operações de filtragem. Quanto ao reconhecimento de padrões é feita uma breve análise das técnicas relacionadas a este tema. Os diversos tipos de sistemas de reconhecimento de caracteres são abordados, assim coma as técnicas e algoritmos empregados por estes. Além destes tópicos é apresentada uma discussão a respeito da avaliação dos resultados obtidos por estes sistemas, assim como é feita uma análise das principais dificuldades enfrentadas por estas aplicações. Neste trabalho é feita uma apresentação a respeito das redes neurais, suas características, histórico e evolução das pesquisas nesta área. É feita uma descrição dos principais modelos de redes neurais em destaque na atualidade: Perceptron, Adaline, Madaline, redes multinível, ART, modelo de Hopfield, máquina de Boltzmann, BAM e modelo de Kohonen. A partir da análise dos diferentes modelos de redes neurais empregados na atualidade, chega-se a proposta de um novo modelo de rede a ser utilizado pelo sistema N2OCR. São descritos os itens referentes ao aprendizado, ao reconhecimento e as possíveis extensões deste novo modelo. Também é abordada a possibilidade de implementação de um hardware dedicado para este modelo. No final deste trabalho é fornecida uma visão global do sistema N2OCR, descrevendo cada um de seus módulos. Também é feita uma descrição do protótipo implementado e de suas funções. / This work presents a study of visual character recognition using neural networks. It describes some aspects related to Digital Image Processing, character recognition systems and neural networks. The implementation proposal of one OCR system, for printed character recognition, is also presented. This system uses one neural network specifically developed for this purpose. The OCR system, named N2OCR, has a prototype implementation, which is also described. Several topics related to Digital Image Processing are presented, including some referent to image acquisition, image processing and pattern recognition. Some aspects on image acquisiton are treated, like acquisition equipments and kinds of image data obtained from those equipments. The following items about text image processing are mentioned: halftoning, hystogram generation and alteration, thresholding and filtering operations. A brief analysis about pattern recognition related to this theme is done. Different kinds of character recognition systems are described, as the techniques and algorithms used by them. Besides, a di cussi on about performance estimation of this OCR systems is done, including typical OCR problems description and analysis. In this work, neural networks are presented, describing their characteristics, historical aspects and research evolution in this field. Different famous neural network models are described: Perceptron, Adaline, Madaline, multilevel networks. ART, Hopfield's model , Boltzmann machine, BAM and Kohonen's model. From the analysis of such different neural network models, we arrive to a proposal of a new neural net model, where are described items related to learning, recognition and possible model extensions. A possible hardware implementation of this model is also presented. A global vision of N2OCR system is presented at the end of this work, describing each of its modules. A description of the prototype implementation and functions is also provided.

Este trabalho apresenta um estudo sabre reconhecimento visual de caracteres através da utilização das redes neurais. São abordados os assuntos referentes ao Processamento Digital de Imagens, aos sistemas de reconhecimento de caracteres, e as redes neurais. Ao final é apresentada uma proposta de implementação de um sistema OCR orientado ao reconhecimento de caracteres impressos, que utiliza uma rede neural desenvolvida especificamente para esta aplicação. O sistema proposto, que é denominado de sistema N2OCR, possui um protótipo implementado que também é descrito neste trabalho. Em relação ao Processamento Digital de Imagens são apresentados diversos temas, abrangendo os assuntos referentes à aquisição de imagens, ao tratamento das imagens e ao reconhecimento de padrões. A respeito da aquisição de imagens são destacados os aspectos referentes aos dispositivos de aquisição e os tipos de imagens obtidas através destes. Sobre o tratamento de imagens são abordados os aspectos referentes a imagens textuais, incluindo: halftoning, geração e modificação de histograma, limiarização e operações de filtragem. Quanto ao reconhecimento de padrões é feita uma breve análise das técnicas relacionadas a este tema. Os diversos tipos de sistemas de reconhecimento de caracteres são abordados, assim coma as técnicas e algoritmos empregados por estes. Além destes tópicos é apresentada uma discussão a respeito da avaliação dos resultados obtidos por estes sistemas, assim como é feita uma análise das principais dificuldades enfrentadas por estas aplicações. Neste trabalho é feita uma apresentação a respeito das redes neurais, suas características, histórico e evolução das pesquisas nesta área. É feita uma descrição dos principais modelos de redes neurais em destaque na atualidade: Perceptron, Adaline, Madaline, redes multinível, ART, modelo de Hopfield, máquina de Boltzmann, BAM e modelo de Kohonen. A partir da análise dos diferentes modelos de redes neurais empregados na atualidade, chega-se a proposta de um novo modelo de rede a ser utilizado pelo sistema N2OCR. São descritos os itens referentes ao aprendizado, ao reconhecimento e as possíveis extensões deste novo modelo. Também é abordada a possibilidade de implementação de um hardware dedicado para este modelo. No final deste trabalho é fornecida uma visão global do sistema N2OCR, descrevendo cada um de seus módulos. Também é feita uma descrição do protótipo implementado e de suas funções. / This work presents a study of visual character recognition using neural networks. It describes some aspects related to Digital Image Processing, character recognition systems and neural networks. The implementation proposal of one OCR system, for printed character recognition, is also presented. This system uses one neural network specifically developed for this purpose. The OCR system, named N2OCR, has a prototype implementation, which is also described. Several topics related to Digital Image Processing are presented, including some referent to image acquisition, image processing and pattern recognition. Some aspects on image acquisiton are treated, like acquisition equipments and kinds of image data obtained from those equipments. The following items about text image processing are mentioned: halftoning, hystogram generation and alteration, thresholding and filtering operations. A brief analysis about pattern recognition related to this theme is done. Different kinds of character recognition systems are described, as the techniques and algorithms used by them. Besides, a di cussi on about performance estimation of this OCR systems is done, including typical OCR problems description and analysis. In this work, neural networks are presented, describing their characteristics, historical aspects and research evolution in this field. Different famous neural network models are described: Perceptron, Adaline, Madaline, multilevel networks. ART, Hopfield's model , Boltzmann machine, BAM and Kohonen's model. From the analysis of such different neural network models, we arrive to a proposal of a new neural net model, where are described items related to learning, recognition and possible model extensions. A possible hardware implementation of this model is also presented. A global vision of N2OCR system is presented at the end of this work, describing each of its modules. A description of the prototype implementation and functions is also provided.

DARC is a technique for data broadcasting over the FM radio network. Sectra Wireless Technologies AB has developed a handheld DARC receiver known as the Sectra CitySurfer. The CitySurfer is equipped with a high-resolution display along with buttons and a joystick that allows the user to view and navigate through various types of information received over DARC. Sectra Wireless Technologies AB has, among other services, also developed a paging system that enables personal message transmission over DARC. The background of this thesis is a wish to be able to send fax documents using the paging system and to be able to view received fax documents in the CitySurfer. The presented solution is a central PC-based fax server. The fax server is responsible for receiving standard fax transmissions and converting the fax documents before redirecting them to the right receiver in the DARC network. The topics discussed in this thesis are fax document routing, fax document conversion and fax server system design.

This master’s thesis describes the work in creating a customised optical character recognition (OCR) application; intended for use in digitisation of theses submitted to the Uppsala University in the 18th and 19th centuries. For this purpose, an open source software called Gamera has been used for recognition and classification of the characters in the documents. The software provides specific algorithms for analysis of heritage documents and is designed to be used as a tool for creating domain-specific (i.e. customised) recognition applications. By using the Gamera classifier training interface, classifier data was created which reflects the characters in the particular theses. The data can then be used in automatic recognition of ‘new’ characters, by loading it into one of Gamera’s classifiers. The output of Gamera are sets of classified glyphs (i.e. small images of characters), stored in an XML-based format. However, as OCR typically involves translation of images of text into a machine-readable format, a complementary OCR-module was needed. For this purpose, an external Gamera module for page segmentation was modified and used. In addition, a script for control of the OCR-process was created, which initiates the page segmentation on Gamera classified glyphs. The result is written to text files. Finally, in a test for recognition accuracy, one of the theses was used for creation of training data and for test of data. The result from the test show an average accuracy rate of 82% and that there is a need for a better pre-processing module which removes more noise from the images, as well as recognises different character sizes in the images before they are run by the OCR-process.

This thesis focuses on a problem of character recognition from real scenes, which has earned significant amount of attention with the development of modern technology. The aim of the paper is to use an algorithm that has state-of-art performance on standard data sets and apply it for the recognition task. The chosen algorithm is a convolution network with deep structure where the application of the specified model has not yet been published. The implemented solution is built on theoretical parts which are provided in comprehensive overview. Two types of neural network are used in the practical part: a multilayer perceptron and the convolution model. But as the complex structure of the convolution networks gives much better performance compare with the classification error of the MLP on the first data set, only the convolution structure is used in the further experiments. The model is validated on two public data sets that correspond with the specification of the task. In order to obtain an optimal solution based on the data structure several tests had been made on the modificated network and with various adjustments on the input data. Presented solution provided comparable prediction rate compare to the best results of the other studies while using artificially generated learning pattern. In conclusion, the thesis describes possible extensions and improvements of the model, which should lead to the decrease of the classification error.

This thesis deals with the evaluation forms using optical character recognition. Image processing and methods used for OCR is described in the first part of thesis. In the practical part is created database of sample characters. The chosen method is based on correlation between patterns and recognized characters. The program is designed in a graphical environment MATLAB. Finally, several forms are evaluated and success rate of the proposed program is detected.

As an effort to improve accessibility to historical documents, digitization of historical archives has been an ongoing process at many institutions since the origination of Optical Character Recognition. The old, scanned documents can contain deteriorations acquired over time or caused by old printing methods. Common visual attributes seen on the documents are variations in style and font, broken characters, ink intensity, noise levels and damage caused by folding or ripping and more. Many of these attributes are disfavoring for modern Optical Character Recognition tools and can lead to failed character recognition. This study approaches stated problem by using image processing methods to improve the result of character recognition. Furthermore, common image quality characteristics of scanned historical documents with unidentifiable text are analyzed. The Optical Character Recognition tool used to conduct this research was the open-source Tesseract software. Image processing methods like Gaussian lowpass filtering, Otsu’s optimum thresholding method and morphological operations were used to prepare the historical documents for Tesseract. Using the Precision and Recall classification method, the OCR output was evaluated, and it was seen that the recall improved by 63 percentage points and the precision by 18 percentage points. This shows that using image pre-processing methods as an approach to increase the readability of historical documents for Optical Character Recognition tools is effective. Further it was seen that common characteristics that are especially disadvantageous for Tesseract are font deviations, occurrence of non-belonging objects, character fading, broken characters, and Poisson noise.

This work focuses on creating an application to support Japanese character learning. It also contains a brief overview of Japanese writing's history and evolution. Based on the study of existing options, this work sets the requirements for the application. It discusses problems and tries to find possible solutions. Character recognition is an important part. The work describes chosen solutions and their implementations. It ends by demonstrating achieved results and discussing options for further development of the system.

Internet of Things (IoT) are becoming increasingly popular replacements for their analogue counterparts. However, there is still demand to keep analogue equipment that is already installed, while also having automated monitoring of the equipment, such as analogue water meters. A proposed solution for this problem is to install a battery powered add-on component that can optically read meter values using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and transmit the readings wirelessly. Two ways to do this could be to either offload the OCR process to a server, or to do the OCR processing locally on the add-on component. Since water meters are often located where reception is weak and the add-on component is battery powered, a suitable technology for data transmission could be Long Range (LoRa) because of its low-power and long-range capabilities. Since LoRa has low transfer rate there is a need to keep data transfers small in size, which could make offloading a less favorable alternative compared to local OCR processing. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to research the feasibility, in terms of energy efficiency, of doing local OCR processing on the add-on component. The feasibility condition of this study is defined as being able to continually read an analogue meter for a 10-year lifespan, while consuming under 2600 milliampere hours (mAh) of energy. The two OCR algorithms developed for this study are a specialized OCR algorithm that utilizes pattern matching principles, and a Sum of Absolute Differences (SAD) OCR algorithm. These two algorithms have been compared against each other, to determine which one is more suitable for the system. This comparison yielded that the SAD algorithm was more suitable, and was then studied further by using different image resolutions and settings to determine if it was possible to further reduce energy consumption. The results showed that it was possible to significantly reduce energy consumption by reducing the image resolution. The study also researched the possibility of reducing energy consumption further by not reading all digits on the tested water meter, depending on the measuring frequency and water flow. The study concluded that OCR processing is feasible on an energy critical driven system when reading analouge meters, depending on the measuring frequency.

The analysis carried out in this thesis is made from two different points of view, the qualitative and the quantitative, by using the case study of Malmö intermodal terminal. The first analysis is focused on how the intermodal terminals works and which elements of it interact and how, in order to achieve the purpose of the terminal, and how the Intelligent Video Gate is able to affect in any way to this functioning, mainly in a positive way that allows the better functioning of the terminal.From the quantitative point of view what is carried out is a timing and economic analysis of the Malmö Intermodal Terminal, which is based on the information obtained from the qualitative analysis and from the data provided by the terminal operators that allow to make different simulations to compare the effect of the Intelligent Video Gate implementation in this specific terminal, and that could be extended to similar intermodal terminals located in regions with similar labour conditions and that as the European Union have a huge standardized freight system.Finally, what is stated with the provided data, despite not allowing to make the most complex and representative simulation, is that the aim of the Intelligent Video Gate is reached successfully with a great improvement of the efficiency what allows to ensure with quite certainty that the system implementation is recommended in this kind of terminals.