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US 2009/0014525 A1Published application
Machine-readable symbol reader and method employing an ultracompact light concentrator with adaptive field of view
AssigneeIntermec IP Corp.
InventorsAlain Gillet, Jean-Louis Massieu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An optoelectronic reader for reading machine-readable symbol such as barcode symbols employs a detection sub-system having an RX concentrator. The detection subsystem may include an N-tuple RX concentrator. The RX concentrator may define an optical path for light to illuminate the machine-readable symbol.
Claims23
An optoelectronic reader for reading machine-readable symbols, the optoelectronic reader comprising:
- an illumination subsystem configured to illuminate a machine-readable symbol;
- an RX concentrator comprising a first shaped optical medium having a top surface defining an aperture for receiving light from the machine-readable symbol and an optically opposed reflective bottom surface, the reflective bottom surface configured to focus light reflected from the reflective bottom surface at a first focal point between the top surface and the bottom surface of the first shaped optical medium;
- and
- a first light detector disposed inside of the RX concentrator at the first focal point between the top surface and the bottom surface of the first shaped optical medium.
1 more element
A method of using an optoelectronic reader for reading machine-readable symbols, the method comprising:
- receiving light returned from machine-readable symbols at a concentrator aperture of an RX concentrator, the RX concentrator being a optical medium having the concentrator aperture as a top surface and an optically opposed reflective bottom surface;
- reflecting light received at the concentrator aperture from a first portion of the reflective bottom surface of the RX concentrator;
- receiving light focused by and reflected from the first portion of the bottom surface of the RX concentrator at an illumination area of a surface of a detector disposed between concentrator aperture and the bottom surface of the optical medium RX concentrator;
- analyzing the light received at the detector;
- changing the illumination area from a first size to a second size based at least on the analysis of the light received at the detector;
- and
- reading the machine-readable symbols using light incident upon the illumination area having the second size.
4 more elements
A device comprising:
- an optical medium extending between an upper surface and a reflective bottom surface, the upper surface defining at least one light transmissive aperture, the reflective bottom surface defining a plurality of light focusing regions, wherein each respective light focusing region of the plurality of light focusing regions focuses light incident thereon towards a respective focal point located optically between the respective light focusing region and the upper surface.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.