Reflective optical sensor, image forming apparatus, and surface information detecting method
AssigneeRicoh Company, Ltd.
InventorsSusumu Momma, Kazuya Miyagaki, Koji Masuda, Hidemasa Suzuki
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Abstract
A reflective optical sensor for detecting surface information on a moving element moving in a certain direction includes at least one light emitter, a light emitting lens provided between the light emitter and a surface of the moving element and formed to become conjugated with the light emitter in the moving direction of the moving element in a longer distance from the light emitter than in a vertical direction relative to the moving direction, at least one light receiver, and a light receiving lens provided between the light receiver and the surface of the moving element.
Claims21
A reflective optical sensor for detecting surface information corresponding to a moving element moving in a moving direction, comprising:
- a light emitting system including a plurality of light emitters;
- a light emitting lens provided between the plurality of light emitters and a surface of the moving element and formed to become conjugated with the plurality of light emitters, a length of the light emitting lens in a vertical direction relative to the moving direction being longer than a width of the light emitting lens in the moving direction;
- at least one light receiver;
- and
- a light receiving lens provided between the at least one light receiver and the surface of the moving element, wherein
- the light emitting system includes a plurality of light emitter groups, and
- a first light emitter group and a second light emitter group are disposed such that a space between a light emitter of the first light emitter group positioned closest to the second light emitter group and a light emitter of the second light emitter group positioned closest to the first light emitter group is greater than an alignment interval between light emitters in the first light emitter group.
An image forming apparatus comprising:
- a fixing element which fixes a toner image transferred onto a recording medium;
- a detector which detects surface information corresponding to the fixing element, including
- a reflective optical sensor including a light emitting system and a light receiving system to receive light reflected by a reference reflector or the fixing element,
- a thermal sensor which measures a temperature of the reflective optical sensor, and
- a surface information detector which acquires the surface information corresponding to the fixing element according to a first light receiving result of the light receiving system receiving light reflected by the reference reflector at each of a plurality of temperatures, a first measurement result of the thermal sensor, a second light receiving result of the light receiving system receiving light reflected by the fixing element at each of the plurality of temperatures, and a second measurement result of the thermal sensor.
A method of detecting surface information corresponding to an object, comprising:
- emitting light from a light emitting system of a reflective optical sensor to at least a reference reflector at different temperatures, receiving light reflected by the reference reflector at a light receiving system of the reflective optical sensor, and measuring a first temperature of the reflective optical sensor;
- emitting light from the light emitting system to the object, receiving light reflected by the object at the light receiving system, and measuring a second temperature of the reflective optical sensor;
- and
- acquiring the surface information corresponding to the object according to a first light receiving result and a first measurement result obtained when light is emitted to the reference reflector, and according to a second light receiving result and a second measurement result obtained when light is emitted to the object.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.