METHOD OF COMPENSATING FOR PIXEL HISTOGRAM DISTORTION IN AN OBJECT RECOGNITION SYSTEM

A method of recognizing an unknown object includes the following steps: receiving from a camera, a first image of the unknown object which is comprised of an array of pixels of multiple magnitudes that lie within a certain range; generating a second image from the first image by scaling the pixel magnitudes in the first image such that differences in the scaled pixel magnitudes are increased and the average pixel magnitude lies near the middle of the pixel range; and, determining the width of the unknown object by detecting an area in the second image where the pixel magnitudes exceed a certain threshold level. Based on that width, a third image is generated from the second image, by adjusting the magnification of the second image such that it has a predetermined standard width; and the unknown object is identified if a correlation between the third image and a reference exceeds a threshold.