Patent US 4,092,631

In pattern recognition systems for determining and recognizing any normalized characters registered in a record medium by means of a character characteristic extractor, the presence and absence of two-dimensional intelligence signals contained within the normalized characters to be recognized is determined by the consecutive scanning by only a single vertical array of light-sensitive elements, while the record medium travels horizontally with respect to said vertical array. Multiple intelligence signals for the vertical segments of each vertical scanning developing across the respective elements are combined together in a signal compression mode and then introduced into a pattern decoding matrix in order to extract the character characteristic or pattern based upon a combination of the compressed intelligence signals.