Patent Publication Number: US-5025475-A

Title: Processing machine

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Field of the Invention 
     The present invention relates to a mail processing machine (face-canceller) which can arrange mail, cancel postage stamps, and sort mail according to whether the address is written in print or is written in handwriting. 
     The mail determined to have address characters written in print is further sorted with respect to zip codes by a zip code reader, while the mail determined to have address characters written in handwriting is further sorted with respect to zip codes by human labor. 
     2. Description of the Background Art 
     There exist mail processing machines for facing mail, discriminating whether the characters are written in print or in handwriting, cancelling stamps, and sorting the mail according to printed mail and handwritten mail. In this conventional mail processing machine, however, since the two entire surfaces of a mail are scanned by two optical character readers (OCRs) to discriminate printed mail from handwritten mail or vice versa, there exist some problems in that the cost of the OCRs is high and the processing time is relatively long. This is because when the front surface or the back surface of a piece of mail is not determined because of the absence of a postage stamp, the mail characters must be read and discriminated on both the surfaces of the mail. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     With these problems in mind, therefore, it is the primary object of the present invention to provide a mail processing machine provided with a single recognizer (OCR). 
     To achieve the above-mentioned object, a mail processing machine according to the present invention comprises: (a) means for feeding a piece of mail having first and second surfaces; (b) first detecting means for detecting the presence of an address on the first surface of the piece of mail; (c) second detecting means for detecting the presence of an address on the second surface of the piece of mail: (d) means for determining a front side of the piece of mail on which the address is detected to be present; (e) third detecting means for detecting an address on the first surface of the piece of mail, when the first surface is determined as the front side; (f) fourth detecting means for detecting an address on the second surface of the piece of mail, when the second surface is determined as the front side; (g) means for recognizing content of the address detected by one of the third and the fourth detecting means. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     The features and advantages of the mail processing machine according to the present invention will be more clearly appreciated from the following description of the preferred embodiment of the invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which like reference numerals designate the same or similar elements or sections throughout the figures thereof and in which: 
     FIG. 1 is an illustration for assistance in explaining four situations of mail fed through the mail processing machine; 
     FIG. 2A is a diagrammatical view showing a mail processing machine which constitutes an embodiment of the present invention; 
     FIG. 2B is a block diagram showing the mail processing machine shown in FIG. 2A; 
     FIG. 3A is a block diagram showing an address position detector shown in FIG. 2; 
     FIG. 3B is a graphical representation showing signal level of surface information detected by the address position detector shown in FIG. 2; 
     FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing character detectors and a recognizer both shown in FIG. 2; and 
     FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing an address position detector shown in FIG. 4. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     A mail address processing machine which constitutes an embodiment of the present invention will be described hereinbelow with reference to the attached drawings. 
     In FIG. 2A, the mail processing machine reads a Zip code and an address written on a piece of mail, discriminates whether the address characters are written in print or in handwriting, cancels stamps, and sorts the mail into two groups: printed address mail and handwritten address mail. A first group of mail sorted as print writing is further sorted automatically by a Zip code reader; while a second group of mail sorted as handwriting is further sorted by manual operation according to Zip codes. 
     The mail processing machine shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B comprises an operator panel 101, a controller 100, a mail box 1, a mail carrier 1A, two stamp detectors 3a and 3b, a non-inversion path 5 and an inversion path 7 (mail arrangement mechanism), two stamp detectors 9a and 9b, two address position detectors 20a and 20b, a branch mechanism 50, two character detectors 30a and 30b, a recognizer 40, two stamp cancellers 13a and 13b, and a sorter 15 including plural mail sorting boxes 15a to 15e. 
     In more detail with reference to FIG. 2A, a batch of mail is arranged in a mail box 1. Each piece of mail arranged in the mail box 1 is fed one by one to two (postage) stamp detectors 3a and 3b in a vertical mail position. In this case, when a postage stamp is attached to a corner of a mail as shown by (a) in FIG. 1, four different positions (a), (b), (a) and (b) can be considered as depicted in FIG. 1, in which solid lines of a stamp indicate that a stamp is attached on the front surface side of a mail and dashed lines thereof indicate that a stamp is attached on the back surface side of a piece of mail. Here, the two stamp detectors 3a and 3b are so arranged as to detect the stamp only when the stamp is located at the lower ends of the mail as depicted by (a) and (b) in FIG. 1, respectively. That is, the stamp attached as (a) in FIG. 1 can be detected by the stamp detector 3a, and that attached as (b) in FIG. 1 can be detected by the stamp detector 3b. When these two detectors 3a and 3b detect the presence of a stamp, the mail is fed through a non-inversion path 5. However, when these two detectors 3a and 3b cannot detect the presence of a stamp or when the stamp is located at the upper ends of the mail as depicted by (a) and (b) in FIG. 1, respectively, the mail is fed through an inversion path 7 to reverse the mail to be upside down so that the mail is always located as shown by (a) and (b) in FIG. 1. In more detail, when the stamp is located as (a) and reversed, the stamp is located as (a); when stamp is located as (b) and reversed, the stamp is located as (b) in FIG. 1. 
     The piece of mail so arranged that the stamp is located on the lower side thereof is then fed to the next two stamp detectors 9a and 9b to detect the presence or absence of the stamp. Therefore, when the stamp detector 9a or 9b  detects the presence of stamp, it is possible to determine that the address is written on the side on which at least one stamp is stuck. 
     The address position detector 20a or 20b detects the address character position and the front surface of a mail on which an address is written on the basis of mail surface information. That is, when the presence of stamp is detected by the stamp detector 9a or 9b, the address position detector 20a or 20b next detects the presence of an address window covered by cellophane or an address label on which an address is written in order to detect a piece of mail address character position. When the presence of a stamp is not detected by the two stamp detectors 9a and 9b, the quantity of characters or the extent of characters written on one surface of the mail is compared with that on the other surface of the same piece of mail by the two address position detectors 20a and 20b in order to determine the front surface or the back surface of the piece of mail. That is, the surface on which many characters are written is determined as the front surface of the mail. 
     On the basis of the above detected window or label position and the quantity of characters, it is possible to detect the front side or the back side of the mail and the address position or area where an address is written. In other words, even when the stamp detector 9a or 9b cannot detect the presence of a postage stamp, the front surface of the mail is determined on the basis of the address window, the address label, or the quantity of characters detected by the address position detector 20a or 20b. The quantity of the address characters can be determinled by integrating the image signals indicative of address characters. 
     When the address position detector 20a detects the front of a piece of mail, the branch mechanism 50 is actuated so that the piece of mail is fed to the character detector 30a. On the other hand, when the address position detector 20b detects the front of a piece of mail, the branch mechanism 50 is actuated so that the piece of mail is fed to the character detector 30b. 
     In more detail, with reference to FIG. 3A, the address position detector 20a or 20b comprises a light source 21 for emitting a light beam toward a piece of mail fed through a carrying path for scanning, a lens 22 for focusing the light reflected from the mail, a photosensitive element 23 composed of a line image sensor (e.g. charge coupled devices) for detecting characters written on the piece of the mail, an amplifier 24 for amplifying the detected character image signal S, and two quantization circuits 25A and 25B. The light source 21 and the lens 22 are both disposed relative to the mail in such a way the an incidence angle α is roughly equal to a reflection angle β. The quantization circuit 25A compares the image signal S detected by the photosensitive element 23 with a slice level B outputted from a controller (not shown), and outputs a window/label signal (W/L SIG) indicative of the presence of a window or label of a high reflectivity, when the level of the image signal S exceeds the slice level B as shown by S C  in FIG. 3B. On the other hand, the quantization circuit 25B compares the image signal S with a slice level C also outputted from a controller (not shown) and outputs a paper surface signal S B  indicative of the absence of characters of a middle reflectivity, when the level of the image signal S lies between the slice levels B and C. Further, when the two quantization circuits 25A and 25B generate no quantized signal, the signal S d  is determined as a character signal (CHR SIG) indicative of the presence of characters of a low reflectivity. Further, in FIG. 3B, the level A of the image signal S is detected when the mail surface is deep black. 
     In the address position detector 20a or 20b, the resolving power of scanning is not high (e.g. a single scanning line per millimeter) because this detector detects only the position of an address window/label. The window/label position can be detected in the form of (x, y) coordinates indicative of the number of the horizontal scanning line from an upper edge and a time period from an edge of the horizontal scanning line, for instance. 
     When no postage stamp and no address window/label are detected, the character signal S d  outputted from the quantization circuit 25B is integrated by an integrator 26 and supplied to a comparator 27. On the another hand, other character signal S d  &#39; outputted from another quantization circuit 25B&#39; of the address position detector 20b is integrated by an integrator 26&#39; and supplied to the comparator 27. The comparator 27 compares these two integrated character signals to determine the front side of a piece mail. For instance, if the character signals integrated by the integrator 26 are large, the comparator 27 generates a command signal to the branch mechanism 50 to feed the mail toward the character detector 30a. In response to this command signal, character detector 30a is activated to detect the character images. 
     FIG. 4 shows the two character detectors 30a and 30b and the recognizer 40. Each character detector 30a or 30b comprises a fine scanner 31a or 31b and a quantization circuit 32a or 32b. The fine scanner 31a or 31b generates image signals in almost the same way as in the address position detector 20a or 20b by irradiating the mail surface with a light beam and transducing the reflected light beam by photosensitive elements into image signals. However, the resolving power of the fine scanner 31a or 31b is as high as 8 lines per millimeter because this detector detects the features of characters. 
     The quantization circuit 32a or 32b compares the detected mail surface image signals with a predetermined slice level and outputs character image signals only when the image signal drops below a slice level (the above processing being referred to as binarization). 
     The recognizer 40 comprises an image memory 41, an address position detector 42, a line detector 43, a parameter extractor 44, and a discriminator 45. 
     The image memory 41 stores all the scanned and binarized character image signals detected by either one of the character detector 30a or 30b. This is because the front surface of a piece of mail has already been detected by the address position detectors 20a and 20b, and the detected mail is fed to any one of the character detectors 30a and 30b. Therefore, the image memory 41 stores the character image signals corresponding to the detected front surface of a piece of mail and detected by any one of the character detectors 30a and 30b. 
     The character line detector 43 functions as follows: The preceding processings have already detected an address position or area where an address is written. Therefore, in this step, character lines are further detected from the detected address area. That is, since an area where characters are gathered has already been determined, the succeeding step determines how the characters are arranged within the detected address area. 
     For doing this, the number of character image signals are counted along the direction perpendicular to the character lines in order to obtain a histogram. By detecting the peaks of the histogram indicative of the distribution of the character image signals, it is possible to detect the number of lines. As to the above-mentioned character line detection, if should be noted that the scanning operation is as fine as 8 lines per millimeter, for instance, as compared with the coarse scanning operation (e.g. 1 line per millimeter) of the address position detector 20a or 20b. 
     The parameter extractor 44 detects character feature parameters. These parameters are dispersions of various character features such as (1) character height; (2) character lower edge position; (3) character width; (4) character pitch; (5) character area; (6) line arrangement slope; (7) leftmost character position; (8) line space, etc. 
     To obtain character feature parameters, a reference threshold value δ 0   2  of each of the dispersions of the character features is previously determined. Each actual dispersion value δ 2  obtained by calculating image signals read from the image memory 41 is compared with this reference threshold value δ 0   2 . The compared result (the difference between the actual dispersion and the reference dispersion) is stored in the image memory 41 and added in sequence to obtain a sum total of the differences between the two of the above-mentioned eight character features. When the discriminator 45 determines that the sum total of the dispersion differences between the actual values and the reference values exceeds a predetermined value, the characters are discriminated as being handwritten. In contrast with this, when the discriminator 45 determines that the sum total of the dispersion differences is less than the predetermined value, the characters are discriminated as being printed. 
     FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the address position detector 42, which comprises a W/L signal detector 421, a compressor 422, an address area detector 423 and an image data reader 444. 
     When the W/L signal detector 421 detects a presence of a W/L signal indicative of a window/label position (x-y coordinates), the image data reader 444 reads image data corresponding to only the window/label position from the image memory 41. 
     When the W/L signal detector 421 detects an absence of W/L signal, the compressor 422 reads the entire image signals from the image memory 41 for compression. For instance, the resolving power of the image signals is reduced from 8 lines per mm to 1 line per mm by simply averaging the eight horizontal scanning line signal levels. levels. The address area detector 423 compares averaged signal levels with a slice level for binarization, and determines an address character area on the basis of the binarized character image signals collected at an area on the front surface of the piece of mail. When this address character area has been detected, the image data reader 444 reads image data corresponding to only the determined address character area. 
     When the stamp detector 9a or 9b detects the presence of a postage stamp on the piece of mail, a stamp canceller 13a or 13b corresponding to the stamp detector 9a and 9b impresses a mark on the detected postage stamp. The piece of mail thus detected are sorted and put into five sorting boxes 15a to 15e, in such a way that mail having an address written in print and detected by the character detector 30a are arranged in the box 15a; mail having an address written in handwriting and detected by the character detector 30a are arranged in the box 15b; mail having an address written in print and detected by the character detector 30b are arranged in the box 15c; mail having an address written in handwriting and detected by the character detector 30b are arranged in the box 15d; and other mail determined to be rejected are arranged in the box 15e. 
     In the conventional machine, when no stamp is detected, it is necessary to entirely scan both the surfaces of the piece of mail by two optical character readers. Further, even if a stamp is detected, it is necessary to scan the entire surface of the front of the piece of mail, so that the mail processing speed is relatively low. In the machine of the present invention, it should be noted that since the address position detector 20a or 20b can detect a window/label position and the front side of the piece of mail (by comparing the quantity of characters) and further the address position detector 42 can determine an address character area, character images corresponding to only the front surface of the piece of mail and only the address position (window or label) or address character area can be read from the image memory 41 for discrimination. Therefore, character image data to be discriminated are not large, so that it is possible to increase the mail processing speed and therefore decrease the cost of the machine by providing only a single recognizer 40 including the discriminator 45. 
     The operation of the mail processing machine constituting an embodiment of the present invention will be described hereinbelow. 
     The pieces of mail are arranged in the mail box 1 and fed one by one to the stamp detectors 3a and 3b via a path 1A in a vertically arranged position. When the stamp detector 3a or 3b detects the presence of a stamp attached to the lower side end of the piece of mail, for instance, the mail is fed through the non-inversion path 5. When the stamp detector 3a or 3b detects the absence of a stamp, the piece of the mail is fed through the inversion path 7. Thereafter, the stamp detector 9a or 9b detects the presence or absence of a stamp on the piece of mail. When the presence of the stamp is detected, this stamp presence signal is applied to the stamper 13a or 13b to impress a mark on the stamp of the piece of mail just before sorting the mails. 
     When no stamp is detected by the two stamp detectors 9a and 9b, the front side of the piece of mail (on which an address is written) is detected by the two addresses position detectors 20a and 20b. That is, the surface on which many characters are written is determined as the front side surface of the piece of the mail. 
     The address position (surface information) detector 20a or 20b also detects the position of a window or a label. In this process, when the address position detector 20a detects a mail front, the branch mechanism 50 is actuated so that the piece of mail is fed to the character detector 30a; and when the address position detector 20b detects a mail front, the branch mechanism 50 is actuated so that the piece of mail is fed to the character detector 30b. 
     Since the front surface of a piece of mail has already been detected by the address position detectors 20a and 20b and the detected piece of mail is fed to any one of the character detectors 30a and 30b. The character detector 30a or 30b detects characters on the front surface of a piece of mail by scanning and quantization. The detected character image signals detected by the character detector 30a or 30b are stored in the image memory 41. Further, only the character image signals corresponding to the address position signals (window/label signal) are read from the image memory 41 by the address position detector 42 on the basis of the window/label signal detected by the address position detector 20a or 20b. 
     The character features (e.g. arrangement order, regularity, size, density, etc.) of the read character image signals are detected by the parameter extractor 44 and discriminated as to printed mail or handwritten mail by comparing the extracted character futures with the stored reference character values by the discriminator 45. 
     Further, where no window/label signal is detected, the address position detector 42 itself determines an address character area by compressing the entire surface image signals and binarizing the compressed signals. When a character area signal is detected, only the character image signals corresponding to the address area signal are read from the image memory 41 for discrimination. 
     The pieces of mail thus discriminated are stored into the five sorting boxes 15a to 15e. 
     In the above description, the mail processing machine of the present invention has been disclosed with reference to block diagrams (i.e. hardware configuration). In practice, however, the mail processing machine is controlled by the controller 100 provided with a ROM, a ROM, a display unit, a keyboard 101, etc., which is operated in accordance with control programs (i.e. software). 
     As described above, in the mail processing machine of the present invention, since the surface information (window or label position, quantity of characters, character block position) is first detected and then only the character image signals limited by the surface information are discriminated as to whether the address characters are written in print or handwriting, it is possible to improve the sorting speed of the mail, while reducing the cost of the machine.