A microprocessor-based optical character recognition check reader

Abstract

Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) technology has widely been used for processing bank checks. Since the MICR character set is a special type font, and the ink is also readable by human being, optical approach can also be used. This report will describe the design of a low-cost, but highly accurate, microprocessor-based optical character recognition (OCR) check reader. The performance of our OCR reader is affected by a number of factors, mainly the noise generated by the lens system and the colour image at the check background. In this paper we describe how our software solution can alleviate these problems. As speed is another concern, special attention is paid to the design of recognition algorithm, such as the avoidance of floating point arithmetics, hardware limitations, etc.