Optical bowling pin sensor

A bowling sensor for sensing bowling pins standing on the pin deck of a bowling lane, comprising the combination,

• a linear array of photosensitive devices that are responsive to light incident on the array, the array of devices being many times longer than its height,
• an anamorphic optical system disposed in front of said linear array,
• means for mounting said linear array and said optical system on the side of said bowling lane in front of the pin deck with the optical system being fixedly directed at pins standing on the pin deck,
• said optical system being constructed and arranged to project substantially only onto the photosensitive portion of said linear array an image of said standing pins that includes only about the top one third of each pin of a full set of pins standing on their respective spots on the pin deck and only approximately the full width of said full set of pins standing on their respective spots on the pin deck.

A bowling sensor for sensing bowling pins standing on the pin deck of a bowling lane, comprising the combination

• a linear array of semiconductor photodiodes packaged in a housing,
• an elongate, thin, translucent aperture in said housing extending parallel to said array for admitting light from outside the package onto the linear array of photodiodes,
• an optical system disposed in front of said photodiode array and having a principal axis directed toward the pin deck,
• said optical system providing a reduction ratio considerably greater than unity, thereby to provide a horizontal field of view that includes at least a full set of bowling pins on their respective spots on the pin deck and to provide a vertical field of view that includes approximately the top five inches of the standing pins on the pin deck,
• respective signal storage means associated with each of said photodiodes, said storage means and photodiodes operating in response to light incident on the photodiode to cause a signal to be stored on each storage means that is a function of the intensity of light incident on its respective photodiode, means for sampling said signal storage means to provide pin signals represenative of sensed standing bowling pins.