An Efficient Bar/QR Code Recognition System for Consumer Service Applications

In recent years, consumer electronics for providing better customer service has sought a significant growth. For production, storage and supply of goods to consumers, it is essential to have correct information, recognize and store the information efficiently in computers. Therefore, it is essential to have an efficient and handy bar code recognition system. This paper presents an efficient method for bar code and QR code recognition together. The method automatically detects the Bar code QR code and displays the complete information of the product. The method is developed in python environment using OpenCV library. However, OpenCV does not have any dedicated modules that can be used to read and decode Bar codes and QR codes. The database is developed at the authors' Institute where bar codes and QR codes are separately assigned to more than 100 items such as books, sofa, tables and chairs. The image of the bar code or QR code is captured in real-time and further processed using the proposed method. The code is being decoded, compared with the Data frame of the stored product and finally, displays the result i.e, the complete information about the product. The execution time of the proposed method is 0.25 seconds. The proposed method can be further prototyped on micro-controllers to develop an efficient bar code recognition system.