Fusion: Practice and Applications FPA 2692-4048 2770-0070 10.54216/FPA https://www.americaspg.com/journals/show/2423 2018 2018 Department of Computer Science & Engineering, RKDF University, Bhopal (MP), India Ashwini Ashwini Department of Computer Science and Engineering, RKDF University, Bhopal (MP), India Puneet Dwivedi This study presents a hybrid recognition system for multi-class compound Marathi characters, which addresses the problem of handwritten Marathi character recognition. The methodology efficiently bridges the gap between feature extraction and classification by integrating a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Support Vector Machine (SVM). The first step is gathering and preprocessing a wide range of handwritten Marathi compound characters that are written in different styles. Using conventional supervised learning methods, the CNN is trained on this dataset, paying special attention to data augmentation and validation in order to reduce overfitting. High-level features taken from the final fully connected layer of the CNN are fed into an SVM classifier in the next step. By using these features in its training, the SVM improves prediction accuracy. For multi-class classification, the one-vs-all method is used. The hybrid CNN-SVM algorithm demonstrates its effectiveness in the crucial phases of feature extraction and classification by identifying handwritten compound Marathi characters with remarkable accuracy. Evaluation metrics, such as accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, and confusion matrix analysis, are employed in the process of evaluating the effectiveness of the model. This assessment is carried out on a different testing dataset, offering a thorough examination of the model's functionality. The proposed algorithm demonstrates its superior performance and potential for improved character recognition by achieving training accuracy of 98.60% and validation accuracy of 97.69%. The development of handwriting recognition systems has benefited greatly from this research, especially when it comes to intricate scripts like Marathi. The suggested hybrid algorithm shows encouraging outcomes and has a great deal of potential for use in document processing, natural language comprehension, and character recognition in languages that use the Marathi script. Subsequent efforts will centre on refining the model and investigating ensemble methods to increase the robustness and accuracy of recognition. 2024 2024 26 42 10.54216/FPA.140202 https://www.americaspg.com/articleinfo/3/show/2423