1.1 Introduction
Currency converter is an application that deals with the rate at which a currency is exchanged for another currency. It is referred to as the ratio at which a unit of currency of one country is expressed in terms of another currency. The rate is normally determined in the foreign exchange market. The foreign exchange market is a market where currencies of different countries are bought and sold. It is a market where the values of local and foreign currencies are determined. As noted by Jhingan (2004), the national currencies of all countries are the stock-in-trade of the foreign exchange market, and as such, it is the largest market to be found around the world which functions in every country. Numerous factors determine exchange rates, and all are related to the trading relationship between two countries.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
The staffs who work at places like money exchange offices have to distinguish between different types of currencies and convert them to other currencies and that is not an easy job. They have to remember the symbol of each currency. This may result into wrong recognition, so they need an efficient and foolproof system to aid in their work. The aim of our system is to help people who need to recognize different currencies, and be able to convert them to another currency using a known exchange rate. With development of modern banking services, automatic methods for paper currency recognition become important in many applications such as vending machines. It is very difficult to count different denomination notes in a bunch. This project proposes an image processing technique for paper currency recognition and conversion.
The extracted region of interest (ROI) can be used with Pattern Recognition and Neural Networks matching technique. Image Processing involves changing the nature of an image in order to improve its pictorial information for human interpretation. There are various techniques for currency recognition that involve texture, pattern or color based. We use digital image processing techniques to find region of interest, ter that Neural Network and Pattern Recognition Technique is used for matching the pattern. A number of methods for banknote classification have been proposed. Template matching is often used as a simple method to classify banknotes.
However, new template or matching rules are required for new bill types. An effective way to overcome the problem is to extract features from bill images representing unique characteristics of bill data. After studying different currencies and considering the availability, we have chosen 5 currencies to work on for this project. The chosen currencies are Indian Rupees (INR), Australian Dollar (AUD), Euro (EUR), Nigerian Naira (NGN) and US Dollar (USD).
A distinctive point extraction method used a coordinate data extraction method from specific parts of a Euro banknote representing the same color. In order to recognize banknotes, they used two key properties of banknotes: direction (front, rotated front, back, and rotated back) and face value, neural network-based bill recognition and verification method, the learning vector quantization (LVQ) method to recognize Italian Liras, 4 Robust and Effective Component-based method for Banknote Recognition by SURF Features. [Rubeena Mirza, 2012].
In another research work, a simple statistical test is used as the verification step, where univariate Gaussian distribution is employed, in another technique for paper currency recognition, three characteristics of paper currencies including size, color and texture are used in the recognition (Vipin Kumar Jain, 2013). After studying the previously used methods for currency recognition, we can see that most of these methods/algorithms use Artificial Neural Networks.
1.3 Statement of Problem
Investigation revealed that currently, human is needed to recognize the amount of the currency and to convert it manually. This is stressful especially to people who aren’t so smart in calculations. So, this project is developed to replace human power to recognize the amount of the currency. Currency Recognition and converter system is implemented to reduce human power to automatically recognize the amount of currency and convert it into the other currency without human supervision.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is to design and implement a Currency Converter for Major Countries of the World. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to develop an application software that will:
- Enable conversion between the currencies mentioned in the scope of study;
- Store and use data during conversion between the correspondent currencies;
- Determined the accurate amount of paper currency using neural network; and
- Extract the data from the currency image by using digital image processing toolbox.
1.5 Significance of Study
The proposed system will be able to recognize the currency amount, integrate hardware and software, extract the data from the currency image by using digital image processing toolbox, accept and store an exchange rate for conversion between currencies.
This study will be useful to every organization that deals with money; it will help in easy conversion of money to another. It will be of immense help to bureau de change as it will ease the task of currency recognition and conversion. This work is also significant to scholars who need to make research about currency recognition and conversion.
1.6 Scope of Study
The scope of the research is focused on the Design and Implementation of Currency Converter for Major Countries of the World. The study is limited to the following countries currency which is listed as follows:
- Indian Rupees (INR),
- Australian Dollar (AUD),
- Euro (EUR),
- Nigerian Naira (NGN) and
- United State Dollar (USD).
1.7 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).
1.8 Definition of Terms
Currency: Money or any item used for exchange of goods and services and facilitates transactions
Conversion: The act of bringing out an equivalent of one commodity in another commodity
Registration: This means to keep records received from the management for reference purposes.
Management: It is the co-ordination of all the resources of an Organization through the process of planning, Organization, directing and controlling
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