Animal ID Tag Recognition with Convolutional and Recurrent Neural Network : Identifying digits from a number sequence with RCNN

Abstract: Major advances in machine learning have made image recognition applications, with Artificial Neural Network, blossom over the recent years. The aim of this thesis was to find a solution to recognize digits from a number sequence on an ID tag, used to identify farm animals, with the help of image recognition. A Recurrent Convolutional Neural Network solution called PPNet was proposed and tested on a data set called Animal Identification Tags. A transfer learning method was also used to test if it could help PPNet generalize and better recognize digits. PPNet was then compared against Microsoft Azures own image recognition API, to determine how PPNet compares to a general solution. PPNet, while not performing as good, still managed to achieve competitive results to the Azure API.