Enhancing the Power of CNN Using Data Augmentation Techniques for Odia Handwritten Character Recognition

The performance of any machine learning model largely depends on the type of input data provided. The higher the volume and variety of the data, the better the machine learning models get trained, thereby producing more accurate results. However, it is a challenging task to get high volume of data in some cases containing enough variety. Handwritten character recognition for Odia language is one of them. NITROHCS v1.0 for handwritten Odia characters and the ISI image database for handwritten Odia numerals are the standard Odia language datasets available for the research community. This paper shows the performance of five different machine learning models that uses a convolutional neural network to identify handwritten characters in response to handwritten datasets that are manipulated and expanded using several augmentation techniques to create variation and increase the volume of the data in the given dataset. These models, with the augmentation techniques discussed in the paper, even lead to a further increase in accuracy by approximately 1% across the models. The claims are supported by the results from the experiments done on the proposed convolutional neural network models on standard available Odia character and numeral data set.