POSTAL ADDRESS READING IN REAL-TIME

In 1994, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) delivered 177 billion pieces o f mail to 125 million delivery addresses. To assist in processing this large volume of mail, USPS and the Center for Document Analysis and R ecognition (CEDAR) have been exploring automation methods for processi ng letter mail with handwritten addresses. The CEDAR system for locati ng and reading destination address blocks on letter mail pieces operat es at real-time rates. The system architecture uses a variety of pipel ining and multiprocessor techniques to achieve the required processing speed acid minimize latency. Image processing operations are performe d using specialized hardware operating at 103 ns/pixel. This hardware includes CCITT Group 3 (FAX) decompression, image enhancement, and con version of the image representation from pixel-based representation to symbolic representation. This symbolic representation of the image ca n be processed in real time using software running on general-purpose processors. This software performs the address block location (ABL), h andwritten address interpretation (HWAI), and data base querying neede d to determine the delivery point of the mail piece. The current syste m can correctly locate and produce a five-digit ZIP code with an accur acy of 66% on a test set of 1566 handwritten mail pieces. A unique del ivery point (e.g., ZIP+4 code) can be determined on these same mail pi eces 26% of the time. (C) 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.