Advanced technology: Optical character recognition: Machines that read printed matter rely on innovative designs. Systems and their performance are compared

Recent attempts to build machines that, by means of optical pattern recognition techniques, can automatically identify visual patterns and extract information from them have met with some success. Automated inspection and photogrammetric equipment, for example, have been in production for several years and robots have been constructed that successfully negotiate simple obstacle courses. But the most progress is evident in commercial machines that have the limited capability of “reading” printed matter and converting it into machine-usable form. Such devices are called optical character readers and the task they perform is referred to as optical character recognition (OCR).