Hyderabad: A smart phone application that can recognise the denomination of a currency note from its picture has been developed by researchers from the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad and IIT Kharagpur.
The app will be helpful for visually impaired persons, who often have difficulty identifying denominations of currency notes. With the app, the user can identify a currency note through a picture clicked by phone’s camera. It will then give a voice intimation to the user.
Visually impaired persons often find it challenging to identify denominations of currency notes. Though the RBI has added embossing of different shapes unique to each denomination on the left side of the note, it is quite hard to make out. More so, when the note is worn outwith time. The size of bills of different denominations, are also very similar, which makes it harder.
The app was developed by Suriya Singh, Kumar Vishal and C.V. Jawahar from IIIT Hyderabad and Shushman Choudhury from IIT Kharagpur. The application can detect the denominations with an accuracy of 96.7 per cent, claim the researchers.
But the smart phone needs a 1.3 MP camera with auto focus. Several similar systems have been developed around the world, but most need an internet connection on the smart phone. This app , however, doesn’t require internet.
“Our application recognises the bills in two major steps. First we segment the bill from the clutter. Then we look at the most similar bill in the database,” researchers said.
AR Jyothi Priya, a visually impaired student from EFLU said, “Usually one is able identify notes with their size and quality of the paper. However, sometimes there is a dilemma between Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes.”
