Reflective optical sensor and image forming apparatus
AssigneeRicoh Company, Ltd.
InventorsKoji Masuda, Hidemasa Suzuki
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A reflective optical sensor includes at least three light-emitting elements; a lighting optical system that guides light emitted from the light-emitting elements to a toner pattern; and at least three light-receiving elements that receive the beams of light reflected by the toner pattern. The lighting optical system has a lateral magnification m that satisfies m≦P/S, where S is the size of the light-emitting elements and P is the arrangement pitch of the light-emitting elements.
Claims12
A reflective optical sensor configured to detect at least one of a position of the toner pattern or a toner density of a toner pattern, comprising:
- a light-emitting system that includes at least three light-emitting elements;
- a light-receiving system that includes at least three light-receiving elements and receives light emitted from the light-emitting system and then reflected by the toner pattern;
- and
- a lighting optical system that guides light emitted from the light-emitting system to the toner pattern,
- wherein the at least three light-emitting elements and the at least three light-receiving elements are arranged at equal intervals in a certain direction, and
- the lighting optical system has a lateral magnification m that satisfies m ≦P/S, where S is size of the light-emitting elements and P is arrangement pitch of the light-emitting elements.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.