A fuzzy logic system for the detection and recognition of handwritten street numbers

Fuzzy logic is applied to the problem of locating and reading street numbers in digital images of handwritten mail. A fuzzy rule-based system is defined that uses uncertain information provided by image processing and neural network-based character recognition modules to generate multiple hypotheses with associated confidence values for the location of the street number in an image of a handwritten address. The results of a blind test of the resultant system are presented to demonstrate the value of this new approach. The results are compared to those obtained using a neural network trained with backpropagation. The fuzzy logic system achieved higher performance rates.>