The back propagation algorithm has been modified to work without anymultiplications and to tolerate comput.ations

We developed a system for finding address blocks on mail pieces that can process four images per second. Besides locating the address block, our system also determines the writing style, handwritten or machine printed, and moreover, it measures the skew angle of the text lines and cleans noisy images. A layout analysis of all the elements present in the image is performed in order to distinguish drawings and dirt from text and to separate text of advertisement from that of the destination address. A speed of more than four images per second is obtained on a modular hardware platform, containing a board with two of the NET32K neural net chips, a SPARC2 processor board, and a board with 2 digital signal processors. The system has been tested with more than 100,000 images. Its performance depends on the quality of the images, and lies between 85% correct location in very noisy images to over 98% in cleaner images.

We developed a system for finding address blocks on mail pieces that can process four images per second. Besides locating the address block, our system also determines the writing style, handwritten or machine printed, and moreover, it measures the skew angle of the text lines and cleans noisy images. A layout analysis of all the elements present in the image is performed in order to distinguish drawings and dirt from text and to separate text of advertisement from that of the destination address. A speed of more than four images per second is obtained on a modular hardware platform, containing a board with two of the NET32K neural net chips, a SP ARC2 processor board, and a board with 2 digital signal processors. The system has been tested with more than 100,000 images. Its performance depends on the quality of the images, and lies between 85% correct location in very noisy images to over 98% in cleaner images.

The back propagation algorithm has been modified to work without any multiplications and to tolerate comput.ations

However,typically, these networks do not tolerate large variations of an object's size.

However, typically, these networks do not tolerate large variations of an object's size.

The distributed-neuron synapses are arranged in blocks of 16, which we call '4 x 4 tiles'. Switch matrices are interleaved between each of these tiles to provide programmability of interconnections. With a small area overhead (15 %), the 1024 units of the network can be rearranged in various configurations. Some of the possible configurations are, a 12-32-12 network, a 16-12-12-16 network, two 12-32 networks etc. (the numbers separated by dashes indicate the number of units per layer, including the input layer). Weights are stored in analog form on MaS capacitors.

The distributed-neuron synapses are arranged inblocks of 16, which we call '4 x 4 tiles'. Switch matrices are interleaved between each of these tiles to provide programmability ofinterconnections. With a small area overhead (15 %), the 1024 units of the network can be rearranged in various configurations. Someof the possible configurations are, a 12-32-12 network, a 16-12-12-16 network, two 12-32 networks etc. (the numbers separated bydashes indicate the number of units per layer, including the input layer). Weights are stored in analog form on MaS capacitors.

The distributed-neuron synapses are arranged in blocks of 16, which we call '4 x 4 tiles'. Switch matrices are interleaved between each of these tiles to provide programmability of interconnections. With a small area overhead (15 %), the 1024 units of the network can be rearranged in various configurations. Some of the possible configurations are, a 12-32-12 network, a 16-12-12-16 network, two 12-32 networks etc. (the numbers separated by dashes indicate the number of units per layer, including the input layer). Weights are stored in analog form on MaS capacitors.

This paper describes the construction of a system that recognizes hand-printed digits, using a combination of classical techniques and neural-net methods. The system has been trained and tested on real-world data, derived from zip codes seen on actual U.S. Mail. The system rejects a small percentage of the examples as unclassifiable, and achieves a very low error rate on the remaining examples. The system compares favorably with other state-of-the art recognizers. While some of the methods are specific to this task, it is hoped that many of the techniques will be applicable to a wide range of recognition tasks.