Recognition of perspective distorted QR codes with a partially damaged finder pattern in real scene images

Abstract

QR (Quick Response) codes are one of the most famous types of two-dimensional (2D) matrix barcodes, which are the descendants of well-known 1D barcodes. The mobile robots which move in certain operational space can use information and landmarks from environment for navigation and such information may be provided by QR Codes. We have proposed algorithm, which localizes a QR Code in an image in a few sequential steps. We start with image binarization, then we continue with QR Code localization, where we utilize characteristic Finder Patterns, which are located in three corners of a QR Code, and finally we identify perspective distortion. The presented algorithm is able to deal with a damaged Finder Pattern, works well for low-resolution images and is computationally efficient.