A robust method for coarse classifier construction from a large number of basic recognizers for on-line handwritten Chinese/Japanese character recognition

In this paper, a systematic method is described that constructs an efficient and a robust coarse classifier from a large number of basic recognizers obtained by different parameters of feature extraction, different discriminant methods or functions, etc. The architecture of the coarse classification is a sequential cascade of basic recognizers that reduces the candidates after each basic recognizer. A genetic algorithm determines the best cascade with the best speed and highest performance. The method was applied for on-line handwritten Chinese and Japanese character recognitions. We produced hundreds of basic recognizers with different classification costs and different classification accuracies by changing parameters of feature extraction and discriminant functions. From these basic recognizers, we obtained a rather simple two-stage cascade, resulting in the whole recognition time being reduced largely while maintaining classification and recognition rates.     

A computational model for recognition of multifont word images

A computational model for the recognition of multifont machine-printed word images of highly variable quality is given. The model integrates three word-recognition algorithms, each of which utilizes a different form of shape and context information. The approaches are character-recognition-based, segmentation-based, and word-shape-analysis based. The model overcomes limitations of previous solutions that focus on isolated characters. In an experiment using a lexicon of 33,850 words and a test set of 1,671 highly variable word images, the algorithm achieved a correct rate of 89% at the top choice and 95% in the top ten choices.     

一种基于多特征提取的实用车牌识别方法

针对车牌识别系统的实际应用, 利用车牌区域的边缘梯度特征、几何形状特征、颜色特征、灰度纹理特征定位车牌, 然后校正车牌图像的颜色及倾斜度; 基于灰度投影法, 对普通及武警车牌均提出了有效字符分割方案, 通过自适应判别去除因字符断裂粘连、特殊字符等造成的干扰; 通过基于多特征值提取的神经网络方法初识别车牌; 最后将人眼的视觉特性用于模板匹配法, 解决易混淆字符及污损车牌的问题。通过大量实验证明, 该方法对车牌颜色、拍摄角度、光照条件等限制较少, 适用范围广、识别率高, 有较强的实用性。     

手写混合字符集识别的多特征多级分类器设计

针对常用的银行汉字和阿拉伯数字混合字符集的识别,提出了依据不同的分类要求，分别选取不同的分类特征，并采用先聚类再用多层感知器(MLP)神经网络分类的多级分类器进行识别的设计方法。实验结果表明，该方法用于手写体混合字符集的识别是行之有效的。     

A configurable method for multi-style license plate recognition

Despite the success of license plate recognition (LPR) methods in the past decades, few of them can process multi-style license plates (LPs), especially LPs from different nations, effectively. In this paper, we propose a new method for multi-style LP recognition by representing the styles with quantitative parameters, i.e., plate rotation angle, plate line number, character type and format. In the recognition procedure these four parameters are managed by relevant algorithms, i.e., plate rotation, plate line segmentation, character recognition and format matching algorithm, respectively. To recognize special style LPs, users can configure the method by defining corresponding parameter values, which will be processed by the relevant algorithms. In addition, the probabilities of the occurrence of every LP style are calculated based on the previous LPR results, which will result in a faster and more precise recognition. Various LP images were used to test the proposed method and the results proved its effectiveness.     

Zoning methods for handwritten character recognition: A survey

This paper presents a survey on zoning methods for handwritten character recognition. Through the analysis of the relevant literature in the field, the most valuable zoning methods are presented in terms of both topologies and membership functions. Throughout the paper, diverse zoning topologies are presented based on both static and adaptive approaches. Concerning static approaches, uniform and non-uniform zoning strategies are discussed. When adaptive zonings are considered, manual and automatic strategies for optimal zoning design are illustrated as well as the most appropriate zoning representation techniques. In addition, the role of membership functions for zoning-based classification is highlighted and the diverse approaches to membership function selection are presented. Concerning global membership functions, the paper introduces order-based approaches as well as fuzzy approaches using border-based and ranked-based fuzzy membership values. Concerning local membership functions, the recent parameter-based approaches are described, in which the optimal membership-function is selected for each zone of the zoning method. Finally, a comparative analysis on the performance of zoning methods is presented and the most interesting approaches are focused on in terms of topology design and membership function selection. A list of selected references is provided as a useful tool for interested researchers working in the field.     

一种基于分级RBF网络的车牌字符识别方法

提出了一种基于分级RBF神经网络的车牌字符识别方法,采用两级RBF神经网络结构,由一级网络识别后,根据识别结果和置信度,建立识别分布图,进行二级网络设计,确定了12个二级子网。RBF网络中自动确定隐层神经元数,无需实验调整。用大量样本对系统进行测试,车牌整体识别率达到了85.4%,通过对比性研究,验证了该方法的有效性和先进性。     

A hybrid discriminative/generative approach to protein fold recognition

There are two standard approaches to the classification task: generative, which use training data to estimate a probability model for each class, and discriminative, which try to construct flexible decision boundaries between the classes. An ideal classifier should combine these two approaches. In this paper a classifier combining the well-known support vector machine (SVM) classifier with regularized discriminant analysis (RDA) classifier is presented. The hybrid classifier is used for protein structure prediction which is one of the most important goals pursued by bioinformatics. The obtained results are promising, the hybrid classifier achieves better result than the SVM or RDA classifiers alone. The proposed method achieves higher recognition ratio than other methods described in the literature.     

快速精确识别车牌字符的方法

提出了一种利用车牌字符集特征来优化字符骨骼处理、改进骨骼变长编码的新方法,并把其用于车牌字符精确识别.该方法先利用车牌字符集特征优化处理标准车牌字符骨骼,再将"替换规则"与8方向链码相结合对其进行变长编码的结果作为模板,然后用同样方法得到待识别的车牌字符编码,将该编码与模板进行最佳匹配,实验结果表明,该方法具有实现简单、处理数据量小、抗旋转和对低分辨率车牌字符识别性能好等优点.     

基于分级网络的车牌字符识别算法*

提出了一种基于分级径向基神经网络的车牌字符识别算法,采用两级径向基神经网络结构,由一级网络识别后,通过对识别结果和置信度进行分析,确定了12个二级子网;采用动态误差分割算法进行网络训练,通过大量实验研究,车牌整体识别率达到了86.58%,平均识别时间为181ms,对比性研究验证了该方法的有效性。     

A new linguistic decoding method for online handwritten Chinese character recognition

This paper presents a new linguistic decoding method for online hadwritten Chinese character recognition.The method employs a hybrid language model which combines N-gram and linguistic rules by rule quantification technique,The linguistic decoding algorithm consists of three stages:word lattice construction,the optimal sentence hypothesis search and self-adaptive learning mechanism.The technique has been applied to palmtop computer‘s online handwritten chinese character recognition.Samples containing millions of characters were used to test the acter recognition,Samples containing millions of characters were used to test the linguistic decoder.In the open experiment,accuracy rate up to 92% is acieved.and the error rate is reduced by 68%.     

Performance evaluation of pattern classifiers for handwritten character recognition

This paper describes a performance evaluation study in which some efficient classifiers are tested in handwritten digit recognition. The evaluated classifiers include a statistical classifier (modified quadratic discriminant function, MQDF), three neural classifiers, and an LVQ (learning vector quantization) classifier. They are efficient in that high accuracies can be achieved at moderate memory space and computation cost. The performance is measured in terms of classification accuracy, sensitivity to training sample size, ambiguity rejection, and outlier resistance. The outlier resistance of neural classifiers is enhanced by training with synthesized outlier data. The classifiers are tested on a large data set extracted from NIST SD19. As results, the test accuracies of the evaluated classifiers are comparable to or higher than those of the nearest neighbor (1-NN) rule and regularized discriminant analysis (RDA). It is shown that neural classifiers are more susceptible to small sample size than MQDF, although they yield higher accuracies on large sample size. As a neural classifier, the polynomial classifier (PC) gives the highest accuracy and performs best in ambiguity rejection. On the other hand, MQDF is superior in outlier rejection even though it is not trained with outlier data. The results indicate that pattern classifiers have complementary advantages and they should be appropriately combined to achieve higher performance. Received: July 18, 2001 / Accepted: September 28, 2001     

基于多分类器集成的手写体金融汉字识别

用基于遗传算法的全局优化技术动态地选择一组分类器,并根据应用的背景,采用合适的集成规则进行集成,从而综合了不同分类器的优势和互补性,提高了分类性能。实验结果表明,通过将遗传算法引入到多分类器集成系统的设计过程,其分类性能明显优于传统的单分类器的分类方法。     

结合GAN的轻量级模糊车牌识别算法

目的 模糊车牌识别是车牌识别领域的难题,针对模糊车牌图像收集困难、车牌识别算法模型太大、不适用于移动或嵌入式设备等不足,本文提出了一种轻量级的模糊车牌识别方法,使用深度卷积生成对抗网络生成模糊车牌图像,用于解决现实场景中模糊车牌难以收集的问题,在提升算法识别准确性的同时提升了部署泛化能力。方法 该算法主要包含两部分,即基于优化卷积生成对抗网络的模糊车牌图像生成和基于深度可分离卷积网络与双向长短时记忆（long short-term memory,LSTM）的轻量级车牌识别。首先,使用Wasserstein距离优化卷积生成对抗网络的损失函数,提高生成车牌图像的多样性和稳定性;其次,在卷积循环神经网络的基础上,结合深度可分离卷积设计了一个轻量级的车牌识别模型,深度可分离卷积网络在减少识别算法计算量的同时,能对训练样本进行有效的特征学习,将特征图转换为特征序列后输入到双向LSTM网络中,进行序列学习与标注。结果 实验表明,增加生成对抗网络生成的车牌图像,能有效提高本文算法、传统车牌识别和基于深度学习的车牌识别方法的识别率,为进一步提高各类算法的识别率提供了一种可行方案。结合深度可分离卷积的轻量级车牌识别模型,识别率与基于标准循环卷积神经网络（convolutional recurrent neural network,CRNN）的车牌识别方法经本文生成图像提高后的识别率相当,但在模型的大小和识别速度上都优于标准的CRNN模型,本文算法的模型大小为45 MB,识别速度为12.5帧/s,标准CRNN模型大小是82 MB,识别速度只有7帧/s。结论 使用生成对抗网络生成图像,可有效解决模糊车牌图像样本不足的问题;结合深度可分离卷积的轻量级车牌识别模型,具有良好的识别准确性和较好的部署泛化能力。     

Remarks on different reviews of Chinese character recognition

This paper gives an introduction and remarks on two review papers for Chinese character recognition. One review is made by Chinese authors, another is from American scientists. They investigate Chinese character from different language environments; they do the research from different points of view. Thus, a more comprehensive view on Chinese character recognition, which is an important branch of pattern recognition, can be provided to the readers. Meantime, one article pays attention to online process, and other paper deals with offline recognition, which complement each other. The author is the Associate Editor-in-Chief of Frontiers of Computer Science in China     

基于MATLAB的车牌识别系统设计与实现

通过对车牌定位、车牌字符分割和车牌字符识别进行研究,提出了一种车牌识别系统的设计和实验仿真方法。该方法首先采用基于Canny算子边缘检测和数学形态学相结合的方法定位出车牌,进行二值化、滤波和形态学开运算后使用投影二分法分割出7个车牌字符,最后使用模板匹配和特征统计相结合的方法识别出车牌字符。试验表明该方法是有效的、可行的,与传统使用单一算法相比较,该方法大大提高了车牌识别系统的正确率。     

Handwritten character recognition through two-stage foreground sub-sampling

In this paper, we present a methodology for off-line handwritten character recognition. The proposed methodology relies on a new feature extraction technique based on recursive subdivisions of the character image so that the resulting sub-images at each iteration have balanced (approximately equal) numbers of foreground pixels, as far as this is possible. Feature extraction is followed by a two-stage classification scheme based on the level of granularity of the feature extraction method. Classes with high values in the confusion matrix are merged at a certain level and for each group of merged classes, granularity features from the level that best distinguishes them are employed. Two handwritten character databases (CEDAR and CIL) as well as two handwritten digit databases (MNIST and CEDAR) were used in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique. The recognition result achieved, in comparison to the ones reported in the literature, is the highest for the well-known CEDAR Character Database (94.73%) and among the best for the MNIST Database (99.03%)     

A new and robust method for character segmentation and recognition in license plate images

This paper provides a new and fast method for segmentation and recognition of characters in license plate images. For this purpose, various methods have been proposed in literature. However, most of them suffer from: sensitivity to non-uniform illumination distribution, existence of shade in license plate, license plate color and the need for receiving an exact image of the license plate. In the proposed algorithm, non-uniform illumination and noise are reduced by a Gaussian lowpass filter and also by an innovational Laplacian-like transform and characters are segmented by a set of indigenous and relative features. To be prepared for recognition, the segmented characters are normalized by a local algorithm. Two feed-forward neural networks with back-propagation learning method are employed for character recognition. The principal component analysis (PCA) is used to decrease input data and, consequently, computational complexity. The proposed algorithm does not necessarily need an exact plate image and can receive a band from the vehicle original image as an input, which includes the plate. Our proposed method is completely robust to the disturbances such as non-uniform brightness distribution on the various positions of a license plate image and the plate color. In order to evaluate our algorithm, we applied it on a database including 120 vehicle images with different backgrounds, plate colors, brightness distributions, distances and viewing angles. The results confirm the robustness of the proposed method against severe imaging conditions.     

特征区域模板匹配法实现汽车牌照的精确识别

模板匹配法在汽车牌照自动识别中已得到广泛应用。在应用该法为某汽车检测中心做牌照自动识别系统时发现，0、D及Q3个字符互相误判率较高。为解决此问题，在模板匹配法的基础上，提出了特征区域模板匹配法，应用该法取得了满意的效果，识别精度大大提高。另外，匹配系数的求法也采用了新的方法，效果比原方法好。     

A simple learning decision algorithm for character recognition and pattern classification

A learning decision algorithm, using a set of distinctive features, is described and applied to character recognition. It is based on assumptions which have a wide application area. Emphasis is given on the help it can provide to an industrial user who has to design a character recognizer. In relation to a statistical model, convergence properties are proved at a theoretical level. At a practical level, satisfactory results are shown for three different applications. Tools for performance analysis are sketched.