JP2944286B2 - Mail sorting device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a mail sorting apparatus for sorting mail according to the destination described in the mail.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In general, in the task of delivering mail, it is necessary to sort mail into areas of a delivery worker. Recently, such sorting work has been implemented using character recognition technology. Have been.

This device reads an address written on a mail and recognizes the address by a character recognition technique. And
The mails are classified according to the area of the delivery worker based on the recognized destination.

[0004] By the way, the destination described in the mail is
In addition to the address, there is a large name such as a post office box or a company name. When the post office box is described, the large name may be described.

In this case, in the above-mentioned conventional apparatus, priority is given to recognition of a post-office box, and when a post-office box is recognized first, it is classified into a place designated by the post-office box, and a large name cannot be recognized. In some cases, the area was classified into the location specified by the major name. Therefore, if both the post office box and the large name are recognizable in the destination, the mail will be classified into the place designated by the post office box.

[0006] However, in the case of actually delivering a mail having both a post office box and a large name written to the address,
In the past, mail items that had been sorted by a PO Box were manually sorted again into places specified by the large name because it was necessary to deliver to the destination of the large name. It took time and effort.

[0007]

As described above, in the conventional mail sorting apparatus, when both the post-office box and the large name are described in the destination, recognition of the post-office box is prioritized, and the mail is recognized by the post-office box. Since the mail is divided into the designated places, the mails divided into the places designated by the post office box are manually sorted again into the places designated by the large name, which requires a lot of time and effort. I needed it.

The present invention has been made to solve such a problem, and eliminates the manual work for such sorting, shortening the time required for the work for sorting mail, and simplifying the work. It is an object of the present invention to provide a mail sorting apparatus capable of achieving the following.

[0009]

In order to solve the problems noted above SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The invention of Claim 1 wherein is described mailpiece
Reading means for reading a destination, and reading by the reading means
Recognition means for recognizing a given destination, and the recognition means
When both the PO Box and large name recipients are recognized,
The mail is given priority over the large name over the post office box.
Classification, and the destination of only the post office box is recognized by the recognition means.
When the mail is sorted by the post office box
Means. The invention according to claim 2 is
Reading means for reading the address written on the mail;
Recognizing means for recognizing the destination read by the taking means;
If the destination cannot be recognized by this recognition means,
When recognized, the mail is sorted by large name,
The address of only the post office box because the address cannot be recognized by the
When the mail is recognized, the mail is sorted by a post office box
Classification means. That is, the present invention relates to a mail sorting apparatus that reads a destination described in a mail, recognizes the read destination, and classifies the mail into a corresponding destination based on the recognized result. When both or large names are recognized,
Mails are sorted by large name, and when a destination of only a post office box is recognized, the mail is sorted by the post office box.

[0010]

According to the present invention, when both the post office box and the large name are described in the destination, the mail is classified by the large name. Therefore, it is not necessary to perform the manual operation of dividing the area designated by the large name, which has been conventionally performed.
Therefore, it is possible to reduce the time required for the work for sorting the mail and to simplify the work.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a view showing an embodiment of a mail sorting apparatus according to the present invention.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a transport path for transporting postal matter by a belt conveyor. A mail feeder 2 is provided at the beginning of the transport path 1, a destination reading device 3 is provided on the transport path 1, and a transport path 1 is provided on the transport path 1. A sorting device 4 is arranged at the end.

The mail supply device 2 accumulates mail sorted according to the destination, and supplies the mail one by one toward the transport path 1.

The destination reading device 3 reads the destination of a mail moving on the transport path 1 using an image scanner or the like. This read result is sent to the destination recognition device 5. The destination recognition device 5 recognizes the destination of the postal matter based on the read result.

The sorting device 4 is formed by connecting dishes receiving one mail from the transport path 1 so as to be endless. Each dish is open downward. Boxes 6, 6... For each section are arranged under each opened plate. In the sorting device 4, based on the recognition result of the destination recognition device 5, when the mail on the plate moves onto the corresponding box 6, the plate is opened downward and the mail is dropped on the box 6. The box 6 includes a box for each area of the delivery worker, a box for a post office box, a box with a large name, and a box for unrecognizable persons.

Next, the recognition operation of the destination recognition device 5 will be described with reference to FIG.

When receiving the image information from the destination reading device 3, the destination recognition device 5 first binarizes the image information (step 201).

Next, from the binarized image information, an area to be recognized, that is, an area in which a destination is described is specified by projection (step 202). This is because, as shown in FIG. 3, the sum of pixels of "1 (black)" in the X direction and the Y direction is calculated, and a range exceeding a predetermined threshold value in the X direction and a range exceeding a predetermined threshold value in the Y direction are taken. This is performed by regarding the intersection range as an area where the destination is described.

When the area in which the destination is described is specified, this area is cut out (step 203), characters are cut out from the cut out area (step 204), and recognition of the cut out characters, that is, recognition of the destination is performed (step 203). Step 20
5).

Then, it is determined to which box 6 the mail whose address is recognized is sorted (step 206).

More specifically, as shown in FIG. 4, when the address is recognized (step 401), the mail is sorted into boxes in the area of the delivery worker corresponding to the address (step 402).

On the other hand, when an address other than an address, that is, a post office box or a large name is recognized, classification is performed as follows.

When both the post office box and the large name are recognized or only the large name is recognized (step 40)
3) Sort mail by large name (step 40)
4). If only the post office box is recognized (step 40
5) Sort mail by post office box (step 40)
6).

In other cases, that is, when neither the post office box nor the large name can be recognized, it is determined to be unrecognizable (step 40).
7).

Therefore, for example, as shown in FIG. 5 (a), when the destination includes both a post office box and a large name such as "P.O. Box 35" or "S."
Mail is classified by large name "(Co) S". On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 5 (b), when only the post office box is described in the destination, such as "P.O. Box 8", the postal matter is classified by the post office box "P.O. Box 8".

Therefore, the manual work for sorting the mail at the place designated by the large name, which has been performed conventionally, is not required, and the time required for the work for sorting the mails can be shortened and the work can be simplified.

[0028]

As described above, according to the present invention, postal items having both a post office box and a large name at the destination are classified by the large name, so that it is necessary for the operation for sorting the mail. It is possible to reduce time and labor.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing one embodiment of a mail sorting apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a recognition operation performed by the destination recognition device illustrated in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a diagram for describing a technique for specifying a recognition area.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart for explaining a sorting operation of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining a specific example according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Conveying path, 2 ... Mail supply device, 3 ... Address reading device,
4 ... sorting device, 5 ... destination recognition device, 6 ... box.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Fields surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁶ , DB name) G06K 9/00 B07C 3/14

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A reading means for reading an address written on a postal matter, a recognizing means for recognizing the address read by the reading means, and when the recognizing means recognizes both a post office box address and a large name address. the postal matter than the PO Box preferentially partitioned by the large <br/> port name, when the destination post office box only is recognized by the recognizing means, a division means for dividing the mail piece by the PO Box A mail sorting apparatus comprising: 2. A reading means for reading an address written on a mail, a recognizing means for recognizing a destination read by the reading means, and a recognizing means for recognizing a destination of a large name without recognizing the destination. The mail is classified by a large name, and when the destination is not recognized by the recognizing means and only the post office box is recognized, the mail is classified by a post office box. A mail sorting device characterized by the above-mentioned.