Proceedings of 11th International Conference on Computer and Information Technology (ICCIT 2008)

25-27 December, 2008, Khulna, Bangladesh

A Machine Vision Based Automatic System for Real Time

Recognition and Sorting of Bangladeshi Bank Notes.
Raihan Ferdous Sajal, Mohammed Kamruzzaman, Faruq Ahmed Jewel.
Visual Magic Corporation Limited, House # 13/1, Road # 12, Baridhara, Dhaka-1212.

Abstract This paper presents an efficient machine

vision algorithm for real time image analysis and recognition
of different features of Bangladeshi bank notes by using an
automatic banknotes sorting system. The features recognized
by this algorithm include denominations, orientations and
sides of the bank notes. In a mechatronic system the
Bangladeshi bank notes are fed together. The system draws
the notes one by one and gets their images using a CCD
sensor from a specific side. Then the system determines the
denomination, orientation and side of the bank notes by
analyzing the images grabbed by the CCD sensor. The
average recognition speed is 8 to 9 bank notes per second and
the rate of success is 100% for the banknotes having no
extremely fatal damage.

Menelly [2] patented an idea for currency paper

verification and denomination finding device that uses a
linear array of photo-emitters and photo-detectors in one
side of the banknotes and determines the authenticity of
the banknotes from the reflected and transmitted light.
Paul A. Jones et al [3] contributed another document
processing system that analyzed the full image.
Joshi et al [4] developed a method for determination of
the validity of the bills by visual and reflective spectral
response. Rhodes and Gustafson [5] developed a system
for checking the genuineness of the notes by verifying the
watermarks in them.

Index Terms Machine vision, Banknotes sorting, Image

processing, Neural networks, Simplified Bi-directional
associative memory.

III. METHODOLOGY
A) Image Acquisition:
When the banknotes are placed upon the system tray, an
optical sensor issues an interrupt to the system notifying
the banknotes arrival. The system then draws the note
with its first roller. When the note moves inside the
system, it slides on a long and slender CCD sensor array.
The sensor array is one dimensional, and it can take the
image of a single line of the note at any particular
instance. But when the entire note slides on the sensor, the
complete image of the note is grabbed.

I. INTRODUCTION
Automatic banknotes recognition and sorting systems
have become mandatory in the current fast going world. In
the banks where a large transaction of money is an
everyday reality, the officials find it tedious to count and
sort the notes manually.
This paper presents a real-time machine vision based
algorithm for recognizing and sorting the Bangladeshi
banknotes. The algorithm is implemented and dumped in a
banknotes sorting system, in which the notes are placed
upon a feeding tray and the system draws them one by one
and grabs the images of a specific side of the banknotes
with a CCD sensor. The images are then analyzed with a
microcontroller, LPC-H2106, where the implementation
of this algorithm is housed. The image analysis and
recognition is performed in real time and the notes are
dispatched to two different terminal pockets according to
their denominations, orientations and side.

B) Determination of the denomination, orientation and

side:
The banknotes images are obtained in grayscale. The
monochrome images are then filtered by using a high-pass
filter mask. These filtered images are then converted to
binary images by using a histogram based thresholding
technique. Since the threshold value is determined by
analyzing the histogram of the image, the binary images
remain almost the same irrespective to the new, old,
blurred or faded notes.
These binary images are divided into equal sized
rectangles and the average gray-levels of each rectangle is
computed. These average values constitute the feature
vectors of the banknotes. Sine the notes cannot rotate
inside the system, and the images are taken from a fixed
distance, the size and direction of the notes in their images
remain the same in all cases. It facilitates the design of the
algorithm, because the effects of scaling and rotation of

II. BACKGROUND
Number of researches have been conducted throughout
the world for paper currency identification, sorting and
recognizing the counterfeit notes. William J. Jones et al
[1] developed an automatic currency processing system
that uses the digital signal processing method for
identifying the denomination of the notes. Danek and

1-4244-2136-7/08/$20.00 2008 IEEE

533

the notes images are almost completely absent. The

feature vectors obtained from the banknotes are first used
to train an artificial neural network, and then it is used to
classify the notes.

Bangladeshi taka. It implies that, if an associative memory

is trained with the Bangladeshi banknotes images, and if
any arbitrary piece of paper is placed on the systems
input tray, the program will definitely recognize that
vague piece of paper as one of the Bangladeshi banknotes.
In order to get around this problem, first the feature
vector extracted from an input image is given to sBAM.
The sBAM then classifies that as a Bangladeshi banknote
with a particular denomination, orientation and side. Then
a particular portion of the testing banknote is cropped and
compared with the portion in the same location of the
respective banknote image. If both the cropped portions
are found substantially similar, the banknote is considered
to be classified successfully. Otherwise, the algorithm
classifies the input image as an indeterminate one and the
therefore the microcontroller notifies the system about this
problem.
C) The Simplified Bi-Directional Associative Memory
(sBAM):
For both the training and recognition of the patterns, the
Simplified Bi-Directional Associative Memory (sBAM)
follows a twofold approach: The input normalization and
evaluation.
Given a set of N training pairs ( Ai , Bi ), i=1,2,3,..,N

Figure 1: The grayscale image of a 50 taka note.

Figure 2: The filtered image.

where Ai = ( a i1 , a i2 ,....a in ) and Bi = (bi1 , bi2 ,......., bip ) ,

ai j , bi j R, the normalized input pattern ( A i ) is given by

,
where

|| Ai ||=

(a

ij

)2

j =1

Figure 3: The binary image after thresholding.

Clearly, the vector ( A i ) is a unit vector.

The neural network used in this research for classifying

the notes is known as Simplified Bi-Directional
Associative Memory (sBAM) [7]. First proposed by S.
Rajasekaran and V. Pai in 1998, this associative memory
can manipulate real-number data while the conventional
associative memory can manipulate the binary data only.
But since it is an associative memory, it has a major
drawback: it must associate any input pattern with an
output pattern although the input pattern is absolutely
absurd. That means, an associative memory cannot
classify a pattern as indeterminate while other sorts of
neural network like the multilayer feed-forward network
has the capability to do it. For example, if an associative
memory is trained with the patterns of Bangladeshi 500,
and 100 taka images, and then if any other arbitrary image
is given as input, the associative memory cannot classify it
as an indeterminate pattern. Rather it classifies is as one of
the aforementioned input patterns of 500 and 100

Now, let, be the vector to be submitted to retrieve the

associated pair . Now, could represent a stored pattern
or a noisy pattern. Irrespective of the case, the general
system of equation is given as:
Frame the co-relation vector

M n1 =[mj], [mj]=( . A j ), j = 1, 2, .., N.

where, (x)=1 when x = max( . A j ) and 0 otherwise.
Now, can be retrieved as,
k =

(a

ik

.m k ) , k = 1, 2, .p

i =1

Where k is the k-th component of the vector and a ik is

the k-th component of A i . It is to be observed that the
computation of k is unnecessary since for some d, when

534

TABLE I
THE RESULT OF DENOMINATION AND ORIENTATION RECOGNITION
Denomination

Orientation

Number of
notes

Successful
recognition

Wrong
recognition

500
500

Forward
Reverse

20
20

20
20

0
0

0
0

115
115

100
100

Forward
Reverse

50
50

48
47

0
0

2
3

105
105

50
50

Forward
Reverse

100
100

97
97

0
0

3
3

97
97

20
20

Forward
Reverse

100
100

95
97

0
0

5
3

100
101

10
10

Forward
Forward

100
100

96
94

0
0

4
6

80
84

md = . A d

) = 1 , the corresponding B

Recognition as Average time

indeterminate
per note
(in
milliseconds)

is the vector

to be retrieved.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors wish to acknowledge the strong enthusiasm

and support of Dr. Kenji Yoshida, the chairman of Visual
Magic Corporation Limited, and professor of Hosei
University, Japan.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

The overall system has been tested using numbers of
banknotes ranging from Bangladeshi 10 taka to 500 taka.
While recognizing the denomination and the orientation or
side of the banknotes, the system could determine the
appropriate values for 96.08% of the given banknotes
images. In the remaining 3.92% cases the system could
declare the banknotes as the indeterminate ones because
they were too much old, irregularly torn, or violently
corrupted by different noises. But there was no such case
that the system mistakenly determined a wrong
denomination or orientation. The result is shown in the
table 1.

REFERENCES
[1] William J. Jones et al, Automatic Currency Processing
System, patent description in details available at the site:
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5905810.html
[2] Danek and Menelly, Currency Paper Verification and
Denomination Device, The patent description available at:
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5416307.html
[3] Paul A. Jones et al, Document Processing System Using
Full Image Scanning The detail description is available at:
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/7187795.html
[4] Joshi et al, Fake Currency Detection using Visual and
Spectral Response, patent description is available at:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20060115139.html

V. CONCLUSION
The automatic banknotes recognition and sorting
systems are used allover the developed countries of the
world. But in Bangladesh it is not available yet. However,
in order to make the monetary transactions more dynamic
such systems capable to recognize and sort the
Bangladeshi banknotes must be introduced in the banking
sectors and different business centers properly. This
research is probably the first attempt to develop machine
vision based practical banknotes manipulation systems in
Bangladesh. The primary results shown in this paper are
certainly promising. Nevertheless the authors believe that
there is still a long way to go to make the methods more
accurate, fast and efficient.

[5] Rhodes and Gustafson, Digital Watermarking Employing

both Frail and Robust Watermarks, available at:
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6574350description.html
[6] Gonzalez and Woods, Digital Image Processing, 2nd
edition, Pearson Education, 2004.

535

[7]

S. Rajasekaran and V. Pai, Neural Network, Fuzzy Logic

and Genetic Algorithms: Synthesis and Applications,
Prentice-Hass of India Private Limited, New Delhi, 2003.

[8]

Theodoridis and Koutrombas, Pattern Recognition.