Method for operating optical sensors
AssigneeSick AG
InventorsJuergen Reichenbach, Carl Joseph Hafner, Peter Hauser, Christiane Fillhardt
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method for operating optical sensors, particularly code readers, which have a light receptor that receives light reflected and/or returned from an object. A picture is generated from the received light and the content of the picture, such as a code, is read. At least some pictures are compressed with a picture compression algorithm of the sensor. To improve the operation of such optical sensors, especially code readers, and to improve the analysis of error detection from knowing the causes for errors, only pictures which have error information are compressed and stored. The code reader is constructed to perform these functions.
Claims15
A method of reducing errors when reading optical codes associated with respective objects comprising providing a light receptor;
- directing light returned from one of the objects onto the light receptors;
- generating a picture of the object with light received by the light receptor;
- identifying acquired pictures for which a code could not be read;
- compressing said acquired pictures for which a code could not be read with a compression algorithm;
- storing a plurality of the compressed pictures for which a code could not be read;
- and analyzing data contained in the plurality of stored pictures for determining encountered errors for use in reducing overall code reading errors.
Apparatus for reducing errors when reading optical codes associated with objects comprising a processing unit for reading the codes associated with the objects and identifying objects for which a code could not be read, a picture generator operatively coupled with the processing unit for generating a picture of at least portions of objects for which a code could not be read, a picture compression unit operatively coupled with the picture generator for compressing the pictures for which a code could not be read, a memory for storing compressed pictures for which a code could not be read, and an error detecting unit for analyzing at least one of the compressed pictures and determining the source of encountered code reading errors for use in reducing overall code reading errors.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.