DISCRIMINATING APPARATUS FOR KIND OF PAPER LEAF

PURPOSE:To enable attainment of stable discrimination by discriminating the kind of a paper leaf by using image data within a detection range set by a detection range setting means. CONSTITUTION:A composite video signal from a video camera 8 is passed through a luminance separation circuit 9, clamp circuit 10 and an automatic gain control circuit 11, turned into a binary image by a binary-coding circuit 12 and written in a binary memory 13. R (red) and G (green) signals outputted from the camera 8 are written in a multiple memory 17 through clamp circuits 14R, 14G, AGC circuits 15R, 15G and A/D conversion circuits 16R, 16G. Next, a pattern detecting element 18 detects a pattern of a bank note P from data in the memory 13. Subsequently, a four corner point determining element 19 determines four corner points of a pattern part of the bank note P from the pattern thereof. Moreover, a large band position detecting element 20 detects the position of a large band in the longitudinal direction from a difference between the pattern of the bank note P and the white ground of the large band in the longitudinal direction. Thereby a detection range setting element 21 sets a detection range in a sphere not being covered with the large band in the longitudinal direction. In a kind discriminating element 22, the kind is discriminated on the basis of each image data in the memory 17 corresponding to said detection range.