Patent GB-1118790-A (GB)
Title: Character recognition apparatus
IPC: G06K9/00
Filed: 1967-05-01
Abstract: 1,118,790. Character recognition. INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP. 1 May, 1967 [27 May, 1966], No. 19929/67. Heading G4R. [Also in Division H4] In character recognition apparatus, positive and negative portions of character signals in each of a plurality of character zones are integrated separately to produce signals used for recognition. A character in E13B font considered to be divided into 8 zones (sensed in turn) moves past a single-gap magnetic reading head to produce a derivative waveform which, after normalization controlled by a peak store (see below) and inversion, is supplied to the peak store which stores the amplitude of the largest negative peak received by it, and to a controlled-gain amplifier and to a peak detector. The peak detector produces an output pulse for each negative peak provided (a) the peak is not on the reverse slope of a peak already detected in the current zone, (b) the peak is more negative than a fixed noise threshold, (c) the peak is more negative than a signal derived from the peak store, and (d) the peak does not occur during an interval of predetermined duration starting at the end of the character. The output pulse from the peak detector during the character switches on an oscillator in a timing circuit to drive a timing ring having 8 outputs used for splitting zones into 8 subzones each, except for zone 1 which has 4 sub-zones and except for during retiming (see below). The timing ring drives a binary zone counter. On reaching a count of 8 the zone counter performs reset functions and produces a pulse for feature (d) above. The retiming feature mentioned is to compensate for incorrect document speed, as follows. If an output pulse from the peak detector occurs other than near zone centre, except in zone I, the timing ring is caused to skip one or more positions, effectively shortening or lengthening the current zone. Noise peaks on the leading slope of a true peak will cause retiming to occur when the true peak arrives and are therefore compensated for, except when they occur more than 4 sub-zones prior to the zone 1 true peak on its leading edge. To compensate for this, advance of the zone counter to zone 1 is dependent on presence of a signal from the peak detector indicating that not both conditions (a) and (b) are satisfied. The gain of the controlled-gain amplifier is controlled by the timing ring to be a maximum at zone centre to preferentially magnify the true peaks which are expected to occur there. The increase and decrease of the gain is stepped, four levels being possible. The output of the controlled-gain amplifier is fed to an up-down integrator block which integrates the positive and negative swings on respective capacitors, which are discharged at the end of each zone. The capacitor charges are compared to produce an UP signal or a DOWN signal. The output of the controlled-gain amplifier is also fed to a plusminus integrator block which is similar except that the charges on the two capacitors are each compared with a threshold which is a preset fraction of the contents of the peak store. If either exceeds the threshold, it produces a respective PLUS or MINUS signal. If neither a PLUS nor a MINUS signal is produced, a ZERO signal is produced. The plus-minus integrator block includes noise-rejection threshold means. At the end of each zone except the first the zone counter gates the outputs of the two integrator blocks into a respective set of 7 latches in a peak classification register in the following form MINUS, ZERO, PLUS, DOWN, UP, UP AND NOT PLUS, DOWN AND NOT MINUS. Character recognition logic, comprising AND and OR gates, receives the contents of this register in true and inverted form and at the end of the character, the character identity is gated from the logic.