Handwritten Numerals Recognition Using an Ant-Miner Algorithm

This paper presents a system of handwritten numerals recognition, which is based on Ant-miner algorithm (data mining based on Ant colony optimization). At the beginning, three distinct fractures (also called attributes) of each numeral are extracted. The attributes are Loop zones, End points, and Feature codes. After these data are extracted, the attributes are in the form of attribute = value (eg. End point10 = true). The extraction is started by dividing the numeral into 12 zones. The numbers 1-12 are referenced for each zone. The possible values of Loop zone attribute in each zone are "true" and "false". The meaning of "true" is that the zone contains the loop of the numeral. The Endpoint attribute being "true" means that this zone contains the end point of the numeral. There are 24 attributes now. The Feature code attribute tells us how many lines of a numeral are passed by the referenced line. There are 7 referenced lines used in this experiment. The total attributes are 31. All attributes are used for construction of the classification rules by the Ant-miner algorithm in order to classify 10 numerals. The Ant-miner algorithm is adapted with a little change in this experiment for a better recognition rate. The results showed the system can recognize all of the training set (a thousand items of data from 50 people). When the unseen data is tested from 10 people, the recognition rate is 98 %.