paper announcement

[Marco Gori]

FTP-host: spovest.ing.unifi.it
FTP-file: pub/tech-reports/bank.ps.Z
FTP-file: pub/tech-reports/num-pla.ps.Z

The following papers are now available by anonymous ftp.
They have been submitted to ICANN95 - Industrial track.
In particular, the first one describes BANK,  a real machine 
for banknote recognition, while the second one reports the
results of a software tool for the recognition of number-plates
in motorway environments.

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        BANK: A Banknote Acceptor with Neural Kernel
              A. Frosini(*), M. Gori(**),  and P. Priami(*)
                     (*) Consulting Engineer
                  (**) DSI - Univ. Firenze (ITALY)
  
                          Abstract 

This paper gives a summary of the electronics and software 
modules of BANK, a banknote machine operating by  a 
neural network-based recognition model. The machine
perceives banknotes by means of low cost optoelectronic
devices which produce signals associated with the reflected
and refracted rays of two parallel strips in the banknote.
The recognition model is based on multilayer networks
acting for both the classification and verification
steps. 
==================================================================

Number-Plate Recognition in Practice: The role of Neural Networks  

                A. Frosini, M. Gori(*), L. Pistolesi
                   (*) DSI - Univ. Firenze (ITALY)

                          Abstract

The automatic number-plate recognition  has been receiving 
a growing attention in practice in a number of different 
problems. In this paper we show the crucial role of neural
networks for implementing a software tool for
the recognition of number-plates in the actual motor way 
environment for Italian cars.
We show that proper neural network architectures can solve
the problem of character recognition very effectively and,
most importantly, can also offer a significant confidence
on the the classification decision. This turns out to be
of crucial importance in order to exploit effectively  the
hypothesize and verify paradigm on which the software tool
relies.

P.S. A demo of the software tool will be available via 
     internet in the next few weeks for Personal Computers.
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