JPH0973519A - Card processing method and card processing system - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) Abstract: When performing predetermined processing on a card, erroneous recognition is prevented and smooth processing is realized when the characters on the card are recognized in order to identify each card. SOLUTION: The card processing method specifies a card by character-recognizing the card identification information for a card having an information storage function such as a magnetic card or an IC card and having visible card identification information such as characters on the card surface. However, in the method of sequentially performing predetermined processing such as issuing processing and inspection processing on many cards, prepare a group of cards to be processed in advance so that they can be processed in the order according to the order of the card identification information. When the individual cards are processed according to the above order, the cards are specified by comparing the character recognition of the cards with the card identification information expected from the above order as the reference character.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a magnetic card and an IC.
By using access means such as a card reader / writer that performs various processing such as writing, reading, and verification of data to a card having information storage means such as a card, predetermined processing such as issuing processing and inspection processing is performed on a plurality of cards. The present invention relates to a card processing method and a card processing system that are continuously performed. In particular, card identification information such as characters visually formed on the card, while identifying the card by character recognition by a special method,
The present invention relates to a card processing method and processing system for performing a predetermined process.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art For example, when issuing various cards having an information storage unit such as a magnetic card, an IC card and a memory card, an issuing process is performed in which desired data is written by a card issuing processing system. This card issuance processing system is a type of card processing system whose main purpose is writing processing. In addition to the writing process, the process for the card includes a reading process for reading stored data, a verifying process for verifying the read data, or an IC card for storing data in the internal CPU. There are various operations such as a specific operation, for example, control processing for instructing arithmetic processing and the like, and inspection processing such as whether or not these are desired ones.

A card processing system for carrying out such various processes normally takes charge of information transfer to and from the card.
For example, for an IC card, an IC card reader / writer,
An access means such as an optical card reader / writer for an optical card and a magnetic card reader / writer for a magnetic card is combined with a conveying means for sequentially and continuously supplying and discharging the card, and these means are further connected. Is composed of arithmetic control means such as a computer for comprehensively controlling the operation of (1) and sequentially providing necessary processing data to the access means.

When a large number of cards are successively processed, the arithmetic control means including a host computer,
Normally, the processing information for each card is possessed in advance, and each card for processing this is given to the access means for processing.

[0005]

By the way, the above-mentioned various cards have, for example, a user ID for identifying the card.
Characters such as numbers and names are visibly formed as card identification information as printing, embossing, marking characters, and the like.
Then, usually, after the card identification information is first formed, the data writing process and the inspection process for the information storage unit of the card are performed.
Make sure that the correspondence with each individual processing content is always taken,
It is important to ensure that the card is not misidentified. Therefore, there is a processing system equipped with a character recognition device for mechanically reading and identifying the card identification information.

The character recognition technology has been improved to a considerable extent (character recognition rate, character recognition speed) at present, but depending on the character to be read, a 100% perfect character recognition rate or a high-speed recognition point. Then there are some aspects that are not enough. For example, the number zero "0" and the letter O "O", the number I "1" and the lower case letter "l", the number zero "0" and the number bee "8", the lower case letter "d" Between "" and the number zero "0", misrecognition is likely to occur. Misidentification between numbers and letters can be prevented if the characters to be read can be specified in advance as numbers or letters, by limiting the dictionary of reference letters as the comparison reference in advance. Since both are used, and there are characters other than numbers and letters, dictionary-based techniques are not always perfect. Then, as the number of possible characters increases, the dictionary size also increases and the recognition time increases accordingly.

However, a card processing system for processing a large number of cards is required to have high speed, and reliable and fast character recognition is desired. Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a card processing method and a card processing system capable of performing high-speed character recognition with a low recognition error rate and performing predetermined processing while specifying a card from card identification information. is there.

[0008]

The card processing method of the present invention relates to a card having an information storage means such as a magnetic card or an IC card, and having card identification information formed on the surface of the card by characters, symbols or the like. In the card processing method of sequentially performing a predetermined process such as an issuing process and an inspection process on a large number of cards while recognizing the card identification information and specifying the card, a group of cards to be processed is Prepared so that they can be processed in the order that matches the order of the identification information, and when processing each card in the above order, character recognition of the card is performed by comparing with the card identification information expected from the above order. It is a thing.

Further, the card processing system of the present invention is a card having an information storage means such as a magnetic card or an IC card and having card identification information formed by characters, symbols or the like on the surface of the card. In a card processing system that sequentially performs predetermined processing such as issuing processing, inspection processing, etc. on a large number of cards while recognizing information and characterizing the card, it is possible to perform processing in advance according to the order of card identification information. When the individual cards of the group of cards prepared in step 1 are processed in the above order, character recognition of the cards is performed by comparing with the card identification information expected from the above order.

[0010]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION An IC card issuing processing system for carrying out a card issuing process of an IC card will be described below as an embodiment of a card processing method and a card processing system of the present invention with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram for explaining a character recognition method, which is a characteristic part of the card processing method of the present invention. The IC card shown in FIG.
001 "(zero, zero, zero, one)," 0002 ",
The order of "0003", ..., And its order is arranged in ascending order of numbers. If the card identification information includes characters such as English letters, the characters are arranged in ascending order, descending order, etc. in alphabetical order, code order of the characters, and the like. And as the first process, the figure shows "000
The card having the card identification information "1" is taken out, and the card identification information "000" is formed on the card.
It shows a state in which "1" is recognized as a character. On the other hand, in the host computer, "0001", "000" are displayed in the order according to the same rule as the order of the order in which the cards are arranged.
2 ”,“ 0003 ”, ... And card identification information,
It is passed to the character recognition device 14 for each processing of each card.

The character recognition device optically reads a character on a card and performs "0001" by conventionally known image processing.
Character data is recognized by comparing the image data 3 including the card identification information with the reference character data 2 “0001” corresponding to the expected card identification information passed from the host computer. The image data and the reference character data are compared digit by digit. Regarding the image data corresponding to the first digit, whether or not it is the number zero is compared with the number zero of the reference character data. Similarly to the second digit and the third digit, the fourth digit image data is compared with the reference character data to see if it is the numeral "1". Then, if all the digits are equal to the reference character data, it means that the card identification information is character-recognized as "0001", and it also corresponds to the reference character data. Further, the character recognition device is provided with a reference character data to be compared for all the characters used in the card identification information of the card to be read as a dictionary, and the reference character data is selected from the host computer. The character code is sent, and each time the character recognition device reads the card, the reference character data to be compared is selected from the sent character code and used for character recognition.

In the conventional character recognition method, for example, when performing character recognition on the image data of the first digit ("0"), the character is not "0" (zero) without predicting the character. Characters were identified by comparing with a large number of reference character data, including the possibility. However, in the present application, it is not the prediction that there is a possibility of one of a limited number of "plurality" characters, but the confirmation work of whether it is only one expected character is performed by character recognition. It is a thing. Therefore, there is no erroneous recognition, for example, of a numeral "0" (zero) and an alphabetic character "O" (o), which may occur when comparing with a large number of reference character data.

According to the present invention, the above processing can be performed.
One reason is that a plurality of cards in a group can be processed in advance in the order of the order according to the card identification information. For example, the cards are stored in the supply magazine of the card processing system in the order of the order. It is realized by keeping. Further, in order to store the cards in the order of order, if the cards are not originally in the order of order, the cards are arranged in order of the order, but in practice, the cards can be prepared in order of order even if they are not arranged. This is because, when the card identification information is formed on the card by embossing, printing, or the like, if the cards are formed in a predetermined order, the cards arranged in the order can be easily obtained.

If the character recognition result matches the reference character data, the card has the expected card identification information. After that, a predetermined issuing process corresponding to the card identification information ("0001") may be performed. . In the case of issuing processing, for example, the host computer prepares issuing data consisting of write data and the like necessary for issuing processing as a file for each card, and sends this to the card reader / writer for each processing of the card to write the data. Issue processing is performed. Therefore,
For example, if the card identification information is stored as key data in the above file, the key data is searched in ascending order and sent to the character recognition device in order, and the issued files are sequentially used to perform the issuing process. , The card recognized by the character recognition device can be sequentially issued. Further, if the card does not have the expected card identification information, the card is not issued as an error card.

Next, the IC card issuance processing system of the present invention will be described. The hardware configuration of the card processing system according to the present invention may be the same as that of a conventionally known normal card processing system. Conventionally known systems include a transport mechanism that sequentially transports a card from a supply unit to a character recognition unit, a writing unit, and a storage unit, a card reader / writer as an access unit, and characters (cards formed on a card to be processed. (Identification information), and the card identification information sent from the character recognition device is used as key data to search and extract the issue data, and the issue data is sent to the card reader / writer to instruct the writing and the transport mechanism. And a host computer as an arithmetic control means for controlling the above. In the system of the present invention, the function of executing the card processing method of the present invention may be added as software to the above conventional system. That is, this is a function in which when the character recognition device character-recognizes the card identification information of the cards that are successively conveyed and is to be read, the reference character is given in advance as a specific character. Further, since the expected card identification information is known, the issued data may be retrieved and waited for without waiting for character recognition.

FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram of one embodiment of the card processing system of the present invention, and FIG. 3 is a schematic device configuration diagram of one embodiment of the card processing system of the present invention. Conveying means for sequentially supplying the cards to the access means 11, the character recognition means 14, and the access means 11 for performing processing such as writing information on the card at a predetermined timing, and discharging the card for which the writing processing is completed. 12. Then, the access means, the transport means, and the character recognition means are controlled to send the card identification information of a predetermined order to the character recognition device, and the issue data matching the card identification information is retrieved and extracted and sent to the access means. The operation control means 13 is composed of a host computer or the like for instructing writing. Of these, the character recognition means and the arithmetic control means perform the above-described operations.

The access means 11 is an IC card reader / writer device when the card is an IC card. The access means performs predetermined processing such as writing of data to the card and confirmation of stored contents based on processing information such as issuance data transmitted from the arithmetic control means.

The conveying means 12 comprises a supply section, a card moving section, a storage section, etc., and the cards are sequentially sent out from the supply section. The supply unit includes a supply magazine that stores a plurality of cards in order. The card moving unit sequentially conveys the card from the supply magazine to the character recognition unit, the access unit, and the storage unit at a predetermined timing. The storage unit includes a non-defective product stacker and a defective product stacker, and a card that is not the card identification information expected in character recognition or a card that has an error in the process itself is stored in the defective product stacker.

The arithmetic control means 13 controls the operation timing of the access means, the transportation means, the character recognition means and the like.
Further, the arithmetic control unit appropriately passes necessary card identification information to the character recognition unit, receives the recognition result (correctness) of the character recognition unit, and processes information such as issue data corresponding to the card identification information. To the access means to execute the desired processing.

As described above, the character recognition means 14 confirms whether or not the card identification information from the arithmetic control means and the card identification information of the card to be read coincide with each other by the character recognition, and the result is calculated. Return to.

Although the card processing method and the card processing system of the present invention have been described above with reference to the IC card issuing process, the card to which the present invention is applied is not limited to this, and may be a magnetic card, a memory card, an optical card, or the like. The card is a card having information storage means, and the target process is not limited to the issuing process, and may be an inspection process or the like, which is an arbitrary process performed while character-recognizing and identifying an individual card.

[0023]

As described above, according to the card processing method and the card processing system of the present invention, the character recognition for specifying the card identification information by the visible characters or the like formed on the card can be performed at a high speed with less erroneous recognition. The productivity of card processing is improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram illustrating a character recognition method in a card processing method of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram of an embodiment of a card processing system of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic device configuration diagram of an embodiment of a card processing system of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Card Identification Information 2 Reference Characters 3 Image Information 10 Card Processing System 11 Access Means, Card Reader / Writer 12 Carrying Means, Card Automatic Carrying Machine 13 Arithmetic Control Means, Host Computer 14 Character Recognition Means, Character Recognition C Cards

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A card having information storage means such as a magnetic card, an IC card, etc., and having card identification information formed on the surface of the card that can be visually recognized by characters, symbols, etc. While specifying, in a card processing method that sequentially performs predetermined processing such as issuing processing and inspection processing on many cards, it is possible to process a group of cards to be processed in order according to the order of card identification information in advance. And processing the individual cards according to the above order, character recognition of the cards is performed by comparing with card identification information expected from the above order. 2. A card having information storage means such as a magnetic card or an IC card and having card identification information formed on the surface of the card that can be visually recognized by characters, symbols, etc. Regarding a group of cards prepared in advance so that they can be processed in order according to the order of card identification information in a card processing system that sequentially performs predetermined processing such as issuing processing and inspection processing on many cards while specifying A card processing system, characterized in that, when processing individual cards according to the above order, character recognition of the cards is performed by comparing with card identification information expected from the above order.