Optical Identification

Optical Identification
An Introduction

Prof. David Bernstein
James Madison University

Computer Science Department

bernstdh@jmu.edu

Motivation

Approaches

Barcode:
- The tag consists of a barcode
- The sensor is a barcode reader that consists of a light source, a photosensor (that converts light to electricity), and a decoder (that interprets the electrical waveform that will depend on the thickness and spacing of the lines)
Optical Character Recognition:
- The tag consists of a string of letters/numbers (e.g., a license plate)
- The sensor is a digital camera
- An algorithm is used to convert the pixels to characters

Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages:
- Tags are very inexpensive
- Tags are easy to create
Disadvantages:
- Usually have limited range
- Sensitive to dirt, weather conditions, etc.