journal article·2026-02-11Open access

Multilingual Intelligent Retrieval System via Unified End-to-End OCR and Hybrid Search

Shuo Yang, Zhandong Liu, Ke Li, Ruixia Song, Yong Li, Xiangwei Qi

Applied Sciences· Volume 16· Issue 4

Abstract

This study addresses the limitations of current Optical Character Recognition (OCR) systems in supporting minority languages and integrating intelligent retrieval functions. We propose an integrated system that combines an advanced end-to-end OCR model with a novel hybrid search approach. First, we developed the MultiLang-OCR-30K dataset containing 30,000 annotated samples of handwritten Chinese, Tibetan, and Uyghur texts. Second, we extended the GOT model using a freeze encoder–fine-tune decoder strategy to enhance multilingual capabilities. Finally, we designed a character-level hybrid retrieval framework integrating TF-IDF efficiency with Sentence-BERT semantic strength. Experimental results show our extended GOT model achieves sentence accuracies of 82.3%, 76.5%, and 78.1% for handwritten Chinese, Tibetan, and Uyghur, respectively. The hybrid search improves F1 score by 28.7% over TF-IDF alone while maintaining 23 ms average response time. This system provides a practical solution for multilingual document digitization and management, thereby bridging the technological gap for minority languages.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline

Research context

OpenAlex topics: Handwritten Text Recognition Techniques · Topic Modeling · Image Retrieval and Classification Techniques

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

School of Computer Science and Technology, Xinjiang Normal University, Urumqi 830017, China

Xinjiang Engineering Research Center for Smart Education and Applications, Urumqi 830054, China

Library of Xinjiang Normal University, Xinjiang Normal University, Urumqi 830017, China

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China · Doctoral Research Foundation of Xinjiang Normal University · Xinjiang Normal University Youth Top Talents Project · General Program of the Natural Science Foundation of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region · General Program of the Science and Technology Program of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region · Xinjiang Key Research and Development Program

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