Bayesian Best-First Search for Pattern Recognition - Application to Address Recognition

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm “Bayesian Best-First Search (BB Search)”, for use in search problems in pattern recognition, such as address recognition.BB search uses “a posteriori” probability for the evaluation value in best-first search. BB search is more flexible to changing time limits compared to beam search used in conventional pattern recognition approach. It does not need designing a heuristic function for each problem like A* search.We demonstrated a 12.4% improvement over beam search on an address recognition experiment using real postal images.