Performance of an optimum receiver designed for pattern recognition with nonoverlapping target and scene noise.

The design of an optimum receiver for pattern recognition is based on multiple-alternative hypothesis testing with unknown parameters for detecting and locating a noisy target or a noise-free target in scene noise that is spatially nonoverlapping with this target. The optimum receiver designed for a noise-free target has the interesting property of detecting, without error, a noise-free target that has unknown illumination by using operations that are independent of the scene-noise statistics. We investigate the performance of the optimum receiver designed for nonoverlapping target and scene noise in terms of rotation and scale sensitivity of the input targets and discrimination against similar objects. Because it is not possible in practical systems to have a completely noise-free target, we examine how the performance of the optimum receiver designed for a noise-free target is affected when there is some overlapping noise on the target. The application of the optimum receiver to binary character recognition is described. Computer simulation results are provided.