SEGMENTED CHARACTER SET FOR MACHINE/HUMAN READABLE

Publishing Venue

Motorola

Related People

Abstract

As manufacturing technology steps forward, it becomes necessary for individual products and com- ponents to be labeled for machine, as well as human identification. Several methodologies have been pur- sued along these lines including the recent data cube identification systems. Most of these systems require either a human readable marking, or complex decoding systems at point of use, ie. warranty cen- ters. The use of a segmented character set, as seen below in Figure 1, allows for quick machine identifi- cation, as well as human readability. This system therefore minimizes the board space required by utilizing only one marked area to serve both identi- fication purposes.

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Technical Developments Volume 21 February 1994

SEGMENTED CHARACTER SET FOR MACHINE/HUMAN READABLE

by Kevin M. Reinharrt, Michael Szilagyi, John Cheraso and Andy Johnson

  As manufacturing technology steps forward, it becomes necessary for individual products and com- ponents to be labeled for machine, as well as human identification. Several methodologies have been pur- sued along these lines including the recent data cube identification systems. Most of these systems require either a human readable marking, or complex decoding systems at point of use, ie. warranty cen- ters. The use of a segmented character set, as seen below in Figure 1, allows for quick machine identifi- cation, as well as human readability. This system therefore minimizes the board space required by utilizing only one marked area to serve both identi- fication purposes.

  The character set is developed using 6 standard line components, such that no two characters are made up of the same mix of segments. A simple machine vision routine can then be used to decode the text via segment identification. Finally, a weighting scheme is employed to each segment count value, and using a look up table, the text is deciphered. Another unique aspect of the system is that new characters can be developed from the seg- ments, and taught to the system. The self-learning feature of the system allows for easy character set expansion, and increased flexibility for the manu- facturing environment. ;#

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