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Understanding Universal Product Code—A Study and Simulation Experiments
Article in Indian Journal of Industrial and Applied Mathematics · June 2014
DOI: 10.5958/1945-919X.2014.00206.0
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Afaq Ahmad Saad Ahmad
Sultan Qaboos University University of Texas at Austin
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National University of Science and Technology, Oman
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Indian Journal of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (IJIAM) vol. 5 (1)
Indian Journal of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (IJIAM) vol. 5 (1)
Understanding Universal Product Code—A Study and Simulation
Experiments
A. Ahmad
Associate Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of
Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University, PO Box 33, Zip-code 123, Oman
Email: afaq@squ.edu.om
Indian Journal of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (IJIAM) vol. 5 (1)
S. Ahmad
Student, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Cockrell School of Engineering,
University of Texas at Austin, USA
Email: Email: ahmad8@utexas.edu
A. Al-Habsi
Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering,
Sultan Qaboos University, PO Box 33, Zip-code 123, Oman
Email: alhabsi@squ.edu.om
M. Al-Hinai
Student, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, Sultan
Qaboos University, PO Box 33, Zip-code 123, Oman
E-mail: m070079@squ.edu.om
ABSTRACT
Given the importance of computers in the world today, almost every item produce is calculated,
quantified and documented. It is, therefore, crucial for human societies to develop methods of facilitating
these processes. The Universal Production Code (UPC) is one such method, a standard which not many
consumers have knowledge of but in probability encounter items with the UPC code on a daily basis. The
importance of the UPC as well as its ubiquity serves as the motivation of the following paper. It mainly
consists of research that is readily available online but also explores how the coding, the application of
parity error check, and the mod theory application are involved to the UPC. The paper also presents some
useful simulation experiments in MATLAB as teaching aid.
Understanding and interpreting the UPC equips one with the knowledge of doing business in a
more efficient manner. As opposed to manual entry, the early method of documenting and quantifying
products, the barcode system allows companies to track their items at a much faster rate; at a lower cost
while simultaneously preventing error (UPC code is 10,000 times more accurate than manual entering).
KEYWORDS: Universal Product Code, Barcode, Error check, Parity, Mod
Indian Journal of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (IJIAM) vol. 5 (1)
1. INTRODUCTION
As many teaching tools (1 - 10) have been developed and successfully resulted in providing help to teachers,
students and common people in learning and understanding the topics. This paper is another milestone which is
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