US 9,426,319 B2Granted

Image reading apparatus and non-transitory computer readable medium

AssigneeBrother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

InventorsShinya Sahara, Kentaro Iwatsuka, Hiroyuki Nakazawa

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Abstract

An image reading apparatus includes a document feeder, a platen, an image reader, a drive unit, a memory, and a controller. The controller is configured to control the image reader to read a document fed by the document feeder over the platen at a reading position, control the image reader to read a reference plate over the platen at the reading position, to generate read data, determine whether the read data has an abnormality, store a value of the reading position of the image reader in the sub-scanning direction in the memory in response to determining that the read data has an abnormality, set a value of a position of the image reader in the sub-scanning direction to a value being different from the stored value within the predetermined range in response to determining that the read data has an abnormality and in response to receiving a reading instruction of another document, control the drive unit to move the image reader to the position of the set value, and control the image reader to read the other document fed by the document feeder over the platen after the image reader is moved to the position of the set value.

Claims16

Dependent claims

An image reading apparatus comprising:

a document feeder configured to feed a document in a feeding direction;
a platen;
an image reader;
a drive unit configured to move the image reader within a predetermined range in a sub-scanning direction parallel to the feeding direction;
a memory;
and
a controller configured to:
control the image reader to read the document fed by the document feeder over the platen at a reading position;
control the image reader to read a reference plate over the platen at the reading position, to generate read data;
determine whether the read data has an abnormality;
store a value of the reading position of the image reader in the sub-scanning direction in the memory in response to determining that the read data has an abnormality;
set a value of a position of the image reader in the sub-scanning direction to a value being different from the stored value within the predetermined range in response to determining that the read data has an abnormality and in response to receiving a reading instruction of another document, by:
selecting a value of a position of the image reader in the sub-scanning direction within the predetermined range at random in response to receiving the reading instruction;
determining whether the selected value is equal to the stored value;
in response to determining that the selected value is not equal to the stored value, setting the value of the position of the image reader in the sub-scanning direction to the selected value;
and
in response to determining that the selected value is equal to the stored value, selecting the value of the position of the image reader in the sub-scanning direction within the predetermined range at random again;
control the drive unit to move the image reader to the position of the set value;
and
control the image reader to read the other document fed by the document feeder over the platen after the image reader is moved to the position of the set value.

17 more elements

An image reading apparatus comprising:

a platen;
a document feeder configured to feed a document over the platen in a feeding direction;
an image reader configured to read the document fed by the document feeder over the platen;
a memory;
and
a controller configured to:
control the image reader to read a reference plate arranged over the platen at a reading position in a sub-scanning direction to generate read data, wherein the sub-scanning direction is parallel to the feeding direction;
determine whether a value of a pixel in the read data is lower than or equal to a threshold value;
store a value of a position of the pixel in the sub-scanning direction in the memory in response to determining the value of the pixel is lower than or equal to the threshold value;
and
set a value of a next reading position of the image reader in the sub-scanning direction to a value being different from the value of the position of the pixel in the sub-scanning direction in the memory, in response to determining that the value of the pixel in the read data is lower than or equal to the threshold value and storing the value of the position of the pixel in the sub-scanning direction in the memory, by:
selecting a value of the next reading position of the image reader in the sub-scanning direction within a predetermined range at random;
determining whether the selected value of the next reading position is equal to the stored value of the position of the pixel in the memory;
and
in response to determining that the selected value of the next reading position is not equal to the stored value of the position of the pixel in the memory, setting the value of the next reading position of the image reader in the sub-scanning direction to the selected value of the next reading position;
and
in response to determining that the selected value of the next reading position is equal to the stored value of the position of the pixel in the memory, selecting another value of the next reading position of the image reader in the sub-scanning direction within the predetermined range at random again.

14 more elements

An image reading apparatus comprising:

a document tray;
a sensor configured to detect whether a document is set in the document tray;
a document feeder configured to feed the document set in the document tray in a feeding direction;
a platen;
an image reader;
a drive unit configured to move the image reader within a predetermined range in a sub-scanning direction parallel to the feeding direction;
a memory;
and a controller configured to:
control the image reader to read a first document among a plurality of first documents fed by the document feeder over the platen at a reading position;
after the image reader finishes reading the first document among the plurality of first documents, determine whether the sensor has detected another document among the plurality of the first documents is set on the document tray;
control the image reader to read a reference plate arranged over the platen at the reading position in the sub-scanning direction to generate read data, in response to determining that the sensor has not detected that another document among the plurality of the first documents is set on the document tray;
determine whether a value of a pixel in the read data is lower than or equal to a threshold value;
store a value of a position of the pixel in the sub-scanning direction in the memory in response to determining that the value of the pixel is lower than or equal to the threshold value;
set a value of a next reading position of the image reader in the sub-scanning direction to a value different from the stored value of the position of the pixel in the sub-scanning direction in response to receiving a reading instruction to read a second document, by:
selecting a value of a position of the image reader in the sub-scanning direction within the predetermined range at random in response to receiving the reading instruction;
determining whether the selected value is equal to the stored value;
in response to determining that the selected value is not equal to the stored value, setting the value of the position of the image reader in the sub-scanning direction to the selected value;
and
in response to determining that the selected value is equal to the stored value, selecting the value of the position of the image reader in the sub-scanning direction within the predetermined range at random again;
control the drive unit to move the image reader to the next reading position;
and
control the image reader to read the second document fed by the document feeder over the platen after the image reader is moved to the next reading position.

19 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.