JPS5953974A - Optical reader - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make a special light emitting source unnecessary, and to make power consumption low, by collecting peripheral light by a light collecting part, covering it to an infrared ray, leading its converted infrared ray onto a business form on which a character, a symbol, etc. are printed, and converting a reflected ray from the business form to an electric signal. CONSTITUTION:A lens 2 is placed on a housing 1 of a light pen used as an optical reader, and peripheral light from the circumference is collected by the lens 2. A projection 3 for guiding a character, a symbol, etc. and a head part 4 are provided on the tip of this housing 1. A reflecting film 6 which makes visible light transmit and does not make an infrared ray transmit but reflects it, a fluorescent layer 7 for conerting the visible light to an infrared ray, and light leading glass 8 are placed on this head part 4, and a reflecting film 5 for reflecting the visible light and the infrared ray is provided on the projection 3. In this way, peripheral light is collected, is converted to an infrared ray, the converted infrared ray is guided onto a character, a symbol, etc. printed on a business form, and a reflected ray from the business form is converted to an electric signal, by which a special light emitting source is made unnecessary, and low power consumption of the reader is realized.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] The present invention also relates to an optical reader. It is.

In this specification, translation includes language translation, calculation, search, etc., the source language refers to the language, numbers, formulas, etc. before translation, and the translated language refers to the language, numbers, formulas, symbols, etc. after translation. means.

Characters also include languages, numbers, symbols, etc.

Furthermore, in this specification, the term "information processing device" is interpreted in a broad sense and includes communication devices, computing devices, translation devices, data recorders, CPUs, word processors, CAD, and the like.

Regarding conventional optical reading devices, the Japanese Patent Publication No. 57-1
5429, Special Publication No. 56-4946, and for light pens, please refer to Special Publication No. 56-34905, Special Publication No. 56-820, Special Publication No. 56-18971, Special Publication No. 56-1897.
As is known from Japanese Patent Publication No. 6-18972 and Japanese Patent Publication No. 56-12907, for example, a photoelectric converter and a light emitting diode are used to print infrared light from a pen on documents, stickers, packaging containers, plastic bags, etc. The reflected light is received by a photoelectric converter and converted into an electrical signal to read the characters, symbols, barcodes, etc.

However, in such a device, a large amount of power of 50 to 100 mW is consumed to light the light emitting diode. Therefore, in particular, portable devices that use dry batteries as a power source cannot operate for long periods of time without using large batteries, making it difficult to make the device smaller and lighter, and the disadvantage is that it lacks portability. there were.

The present invention aims to eliminate these drawbacks, and aims to reduce power consumption, size, and weight.

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 to 4.

Fig. 1 is a side view of an optical reader (hereinafter referred to as a light pen) which is an embodiment of the present invention;
3 is a sectional view taken along the line BB', and FIG. 4 is a sectional view taken along the line AA'.

In the figure, 1 is the housing of the light pen (hereinafter referred to as the case), 1
a is a handle portion of a light pen, and 2 is a glass colored milky white (ground glass may also be used, hereinafter referred to as a lens) to prevent the collected light from forming an image. lens 2
The reason for the convex spherical surface is to capture ambient light from as wide a range as possible (for example, sunlight, light from indoor fluorescent lamps, light from incandescent lamps, etc.).

Reference numeral 3 denotes a guiding protrusion for indicating the extent of the characters applied to the light pen when the light pen is moved along a character string on a form (not shown), over which the protrusion 3 passes. The characters are made visible so that it can be seen that they have already been input.

4 is the head part of the light pen, the head part 4 is the lower end of the lens 2 for lighting, an infrared light reflection layer 6 that allows visible light to pass through but does not allow infrared light to pass through and reflects it; A fluorescent layer 7 coated with a fluorescent material that converts the light into infrared light, and a guide for efficiently irradiating printed characters on a form with the infrared light converted by the fluorescent layer 7 and protection of the fluorescent layer 7. The light guide glass (hereinafter referred to as light guide glass) 8 is configured.

Further, 5 is a reflective film formed of an aluminum film for reflecting visible light and infrared light. Reference numeral 9 denotes optical fibers bundled in a line to guide reflected light from the form to a photoelectric converter 10 consisting of a one-dimensional photocell array having an infrared light filter. The lower end of the light guide glass 8 has a slit shape and is arranged substantially parallel to the row of optical fibers 9.

Next, the operation of this device will be explained.

First, when the ambient light (visible light) is strong enough and a light pen is placed on a string of characters printed on a form, the ambient light enters through lens 2 without forming an image as white light, and the reflective layer 6, the fluorescent layer 7 is almost uniformly irradiated.

This visible light is converted into infrared light by the fluorescent layer 7, and is irradiated onto the characters on the form via the light guide glass 8. This reflected light (infrared light) is then received by the photoelectric converter 10 via the optical fiber 9 and converted into an electrical signal.
It is sent to a processing device (not shown) connected to the light pen. Therefore, characters can be read simply by scanning the character strings on the form with a light pen.

In this case, the reflective layer 6 serves to reflect the infrared light emitted upward from the fluorescent layer 7 toward the light guide glass 8, thereby increasing conversion efficiency. The reflective film 5 also has a similar function.

In this way, in this embodiment, ambient light from a wide range can be captured and efficiently converted into infrared light, making it possible to read optical characters without using a conventional light source such as a light emitting diode. Significant power savings can be achieved.

In addition, in this example, an example of converting visible light into infrared light using a fluorescent substance was shown, but this is to improve the S/N, and is not limited to this, and may vary depending on the usage form. The ambient light (visible light) may be directly irradiated onto the form without converting it (in this case, an infrared light filter is not required).

Further, if the image forming light is not a problem, it is not necessary to glue the lens 2 in a milky white color, and the lens 2 may be transparent.

Furthermore, if the ambient light is strong or a fluorescent substance with high conversion efficiency is used, the upper surface of the lens may be made flat instead of convexly spherical, and the infrared reflective layer 6 and reflective film 5 are also unnecessary.

Furthermore, although an example is shown in which a fluorescent material is applied to the lower end of the lens 2, the present invention is not limited to this, and vapor deposition, plating, etc. may also be used.Also, if an infrared reflective layer is provided on the upper surface of the lens, the lens 2 may be coated with a fluorescent material. A fluorescent substance may be mixed and molded into the glass or plastic (acrylic, etc.) to be formed.

Furthermore, in order to increase efficiency, a collecting light lens (for example, a cylindrical lens) may be used as the light guide glass.

Next, using another embodiment of the present invention, FIG. I will explain.

FIG. 5 shows another embodiment of the present invention. It is a block diagram of a child translation device.

In the figure, the document 21 has the characters "Icananswerit." printed thereon, and 21 is a light pen constructed almost in the same way as the light pen in the previous embodiment.

30 is the lens 2 reflective layer 6 and fluorescent layer 7 in the above embodiment.
, an infrared light generation source (hereinafter referred to as a light source) constituted by a light guide glass 8 and a reflective film 5, 22 an optical fiber for guiding reflected light to a photoelectric converter 23, 24 a black and white determination circuit,
25 is a character recognition section, and the photoelectric converter 23, the black and white judgment circuit 24, and the character recognition section 25 have already been developed by the Japanese Patent Publication Publication No. 57
The details are omitted as this is proposed by Public Relations No. 15429. 26 is an electronic translation circuit set to English-Japanese, 27
is a Percoll type voice synthesis circuit, 28 is a speaker, 2
9 is a liquid crystal dot matrix character display circuit; 31 is an infrared light emitting diode that is turned on by the control circuit 32 when characters cannot be recognized because the ambient light is not strong enough; The tip of the optical fiber 30 and the tip of the optical fiber 22 are arranged substantially parallel to each other with the optical fiber 22 in the middle.

Note that the control circuit 32 has a built-in 10 second timer.

33 is an instruction switch for sending an instruction to execute a translation operation to the electronic translation circuit 26, and 34 is an output of the character recognition unit 25,
．． (period dot)”, “? (cression mark)”
, ``! (exclamation mark)'', ``: (colon)'', ``= (equals)'' and other terminal symbols, and sends a translation execution instruction to the electronic translation circuit 26. 35 is an OR circuit. , the output of the termination detection circuit 34, or the output of the instruction switch 33, the output is sent to the electronic translation circuit 26 to execute translation.

SW is a switch, and when turned on, an alarm instruction output from the control circuit 32 is applied to the voice synthesis circuit 27 when the ambient light is weak and characters cannot be recognized with the infrared light from the light source 30.

As a result, the voice synthesis circuit 27 sends the preset voice output "Please make it a little brighter" to the speaker 28. Accordingly, when the operator brightens the surrounding lighting sufficiently, the announcement stops, but if it does not become sufficiently bright within 10 seconds, the control circuit 32 turns on the light emitting diode 31 and stops the announcement instead. In this embodiment, the switch SW is always in the ON state.

Next, the operation of this device will be explained.

First, when the ambient light is sufficiently strong, the light pen 21
Consider the case where the character string "Icananswerit." is placed on the form 20 and scanned in the direction of the arrow.

In this case, the light source 30 converts surrounding visible light into infrared light and irradiates it onto the character string on the form 20, and the photoelectric converter 2 receives the reflected light via the optical fiber 22, thereby converting it into infrared light. The signal is converted into an electrical signal and sent to the character recognition circuit 25 via the black and white determination circuit 24. The character recognition circuit 25 recognizes the pattern of the characters scanned by the light pen 21 from the output of the black and white determination circuit 24, and reads "Icananswerit."
A character signal is sent to the memory of the electronic translation circuit 26 and written. Here, either the output of the instruction switch 33 or the output of the termination detection circuit 34 is output to the OR circuit 35.
, the OR circuit 35 electronically translates the translation execution instruction pulse so that the original language (English) character signal applied to the electronic translation circuit 26 so far is translated into the translation language (Japanese) character signal. The signal is sent to circuit 26. As a result, the electronic translation circuit 26 translates "Icananswerit." into a character signal in the translated language, "watashiwa sore ni kota er kotoga dekiru," and sends it to the speech synthesis circuit 27. The speech synthesis circuit 27 converts this into a speech signal "I can answer that." and sends it to the speaker 28. Also, at this time, the character display circuit 29 displays "Icanan".
swerit. ” and “Watashiwakorenikotaerukotogadekiru” are displayed before and after the translation.

The same operation is repeated below.

Next, consider the case where there is insufficient ambient light. If the ambient light is not sufficient, the infrared light emitted from the light source 30 is weak and the output of the photoelectric converter 23 is not large enough, so the black/white determination circuit 24 determines whether the output of each cell constituting the photoelectric converter 23 is black or white. It is not possible to determine whether it corresponds to At this time, the black/white determination circuit 24 operates the control circuit 32 without sending an output to the character recognition circuit 25. As a result, the control circuit 3
Step 2 first activates the voice synthesis circuit 27 via the switch SW and issues a predetermined message "Please make it a little brighter".
This command instructs the speaker 28 to output the following audio output.

In accordance with this announcement, the operator brightens the surrounding illumination, and when the infrared light from the light source 30 becomes sufficiently strong and bright enough to enable black and white determination, the black and white determination circuit 24 stops the control circuit 32 and stops the announcement.

Thereafter, operations similar to those described above are performed.

However, if sufficient ambient light is still not obtained even after 10 seconds have passed since the announcement, as measured by the timer in the control circuit 32, the announcement operation of the voice synthesis circuit 27 is stopped, and instead, the light pen 21 The light emitting diode 31 inside is turned on, and the printed characters on the form 20 are illuminated by both the infrared light from the light source 30 and the infrared light from the light emitting diode 31.

The subsequent operations are the same as above.

In this embodiment, the photoelectric converter 23 is activated by ambient light to perform character recognition, and when the ambient light is insufficient, the infrared light from the light emitting diode 31 in the light pen is converted to the ambient light. Since both the infrared light and the infrared light can be irradiated onto the form, less power is consumed to obtain the same amount of light than when using only light emitting diodes, resulting in lower power consumption.

Further, in this embodiment, an example of an electronic translation device set for English-Japanese is shown, but the invention is not limited to this, but can also be used for translation devices between other languages, arithmetic devices, CPUs, data recorders, word processors, etc. Furthermore, in this example, a light pen is shown as an example, but the photoelectric conversion part is fixed, and the form and
It is also possible to move the card or the like. Furthermore, although an example has been shown in which the fluorescent material converts visible light into infrared light, a fluorescent material that converts ultraviolet light into infrared light or visible light into ultraviolet light may also be used.

It should be noted that all or part of the black and white judgment circuit 24, character recognition circuit 25, control circuit 32, terminal detection circuit 34 and OR circuit 35 used in the embodiment may be constructed with one chip LSI. The microcomputer used in the character recognition circuit, electronic translation circuit, or speech synthesis circuit is used to give reading start and end instructions,
A translation instruction based on end detection and a series of processing between each block may be performed.

Note that the embodiments of the present invention include the following.

(1) A lighting section that collects ambient light, a fluorescent section that converts the light collected by the lighting section into infrared light, and a fluorescent section that converts the infrared light from the fluorescent section into a pattern on which characters, symbols, barcodes, etc. are printed. An optical reading device comprising: a light guiding section for guiding light onto a form; and a photoelectric conversion section for converting reflected light from the form into an electrical signal.

(2) The optical reading device according to (1) above, a recognition section that recognizes characters, symbols, codes, etc. based on the output of the photoelectric conversion section, and a recognition section that recognizes the output from the photoelectric conversion section in the recognition section. 1. An information processing device equipped with an optical reader, comprising: an information processing section having a control section that issues an alarm when recognition cannot be made based on the information.

(3) An information processing device with an optical reader configured in (2) above, in which the fluorescent portion of the optical reader is removed and ambient light is directly irradiated onto the form.

As described above, according to the present invention, since a special light emitting source is not required, an optical reading device with low power consumption and excellent portability can be obtained.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a side view of a light pen which is an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a plan view of the main part thereof, Fig. 3 is a sectional view taken along the line BB', and Fig. 4 is a line AA' Partial sectional view, 5th
The figure is a block diagram of an electronic translation device that is another embodiment of the present invention. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Housing, 2... Lens, 3... Protrusion, 4... Head, 5... Reflective film, 6... Reflective layer, 7... Fluorescent layer, 8... Light guide glass 9, 22... Optical fiber, 10, 23...Photoelectric converter, 20
...Form, 21...Light pen, 24...Black and white judgment circuit, 25...Character recognition circuit, 26...
Electronic translation circuit, 27...Speech synthesis circuit 28...Speaker,
29...Character display circuit, 30...Light source, 31...Light emitting diode, 32...Control circuit, 35...OR circuit. Patent applicant's name Noritake Ikegami■

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] A lighting unit for collecting ambient light and directing it onto a form on which characters, symbols, barcodes, etc. are printed, and a photoelectric conversion unit for converting reflected light from the form into an electrical signal. An optical reading device comprising: