MICR Waveform analyzer

Claim 2

A waveform analyzer for reading magnetic ink characters wherein an electrical video signal is produced as the characters pass a pickup head, said video signal containing character data and possibly error data signals, comprising: means for integrating the video signal representative of an entire magnetic ink character to produce a character waveform; processing means for digitizing and then normalizing the digitized character waveform to normalize character ink strength variations; and sampling means for locating and selecting samples of the digitized character waveform as distinct from error data signals to present to a recognition system.

Claim 3

The analyzer according to claim 1 wherein said sampling means includes a peak detector and phase lock loop, the phase lock loop locking onto valid peak pairs produced by said peak detector.

Claim 4

The sampling means according to claim 1 including horizontal location logic circuits for horizontally locating the character data waveform signals for each character.

Claim 5

The analyzer according to claim 1 wherein the means for integrating is reset at the beginning of each character read.

Claim 6

The analyzer according to claim 2 wherein the phase lock loop locks onto peaks which are 13 mils apart or multiples of 13 mils.

Claim 7

A waveform analyzer for reading magnetic ink characters wherein a video signal is produced as the characters pass a pickup head, said video signal containing character data and possibly error data signals, comprising: an integrator circuit for integrating the video signal over a character period to produce a character waveform signal, an analog to digital converter for digitizing said character waveform signal; a time delay circuit for delaying the waveform signal; a time delay circuit for delaying the integrated and digital character waveform signal for one character period; a normalizer for amplitude normalizing the character waveform signal; a peak detector for detecting peaks in the video signal; a phase lock loop for locking onto valid pairs of peaks resulting from scanning a character; and a horizontal location circuit for identifying a character horizontally within the video signal, wherein the character waveform is gated by the horizontal location circuit for identifying the character producing the video signal.

Claim 8

A waveform analyzer for reading magnetic ink characters wherein a video signal is produced as the characters pass a pickup head, said video signal containing character data and possibly error data signals, comprising: an integrator circuit for integrating the video signal over a character period to produce a character waveform signal, an analog to digital converter for digitizing said character waveform signal; a time delay circuit for delaying the waveform signal; a time delay circuit for delaying the integrated and digital character waveform signal for one character period; a normalizer for amplitude normalizing the character waveform signal; a peak detector for detecting peaks in the video signal; a phase lock loop for locking onto valid pairs of peaks resulting from scanning a character; and a horizontal location circuit for identifying a character horizontally within the video signal, wherein the character waveform is gated by the horizontal location circuit for identifying the character producing the video signal.