Context :

In a bid to assist visually impaired people to easily determine denomination of currency notes, the Indian Institute of Technology at Ropar in Punjab has developed an Android App “Roshni”, using image processing and analytics.

Facts :

• The Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar, has come to the aid of visually impaired, who have been facing difficulty in identifying the new currency notes introduced by the Reserve Bank of India, post demonetisation.
• Earlier the visually impaired persons differentiated the currencies based on the length and width of the note, but after demonetization it became very difficult for them to identify the denomination, due to similarity in the sizes of new and old notes.
• Also, for those individuals who lost their vision due to old age or some other conditions, 'Roshni' will be very beneficial.”
• This App utilises an adaptable deep learning framework, which further uses the patterns and features embedded on the notes to differentiate and determine the currency denomination.
• The user has to bring the currency note in front of phone camera and the App would provide audio notification intimating the currency note denomination to the user.
• If the image is not clear or not focussed, or the desirable minimum prediction accuracy is not achieved, the user is provided aural notification to “try again”.
• It is the first Android App and it works well in broad range of light conditions and holding angles.The application “Roshni” is free of cost.
• The Seeing AI App by Microsoft is the only other App that facilitates recognition of both old and new Indian currency notes, but it is an iOS (iPhone OS) App and not available for visually impaired.
• Moreover, It fails to identify the currency notes which are folded or old.