Hand-held plastic optical fiber linear scanner for reading color images formed on a surface
US6075240A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Jul 30, 1998 |
| Grant date | Jun 13, 2000 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jul 30, 2018 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04N1/48
- WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A hand-held optical scanner for reading color images formed on a document. The scanner head is all-optical and contains no electronics. Optical fiber bundles couple the scanner head to a remote opto-electronic module containing a linear or a 2D sensor array for converting optical signals, reflected from the document, to electrical signals for transmission to a computer display, etc. By using side coupling, the transmitted and reflected light for each pixel travels through the same optical fiber without the need for a beam splitter. The optical fibers are used for the functions of image scanning, position encoding, and signaling a computer which assigns each one of incoherently arranged optical fibers to one of the functions.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.