I. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to apparatus designed to cancel at least one postage or franking mark on a surface of a mailpiece that is moving on edge in a belt conveyor.
II. Discussion of the Background Art
Patent Document EP-906 792 discloses such apparatus for canceling/defacing postage or franking duty marks. In that apparatus, means are provided for determining the number of rows of franking duty marks to be canceled on the mailpiece in order to control the print heads.
Patent Document US2004/0218958 also discloses apparatus suitable for detecting the position of a postage or franking mark on a mailpiece that is moving, so as to control selective printing of a zone corresponding to the surface to be cancelled.
In general, postal authorities require the cancellation mark (which, inter alia, indicates the name of the postal authority, its logo, the number of the postal sorting center, and the date and time of the cancellation) to be printed, if possible, such that it is centered on the franking mark or on each franking mark when the same mailpiece bears more than one franking mark. A mailpiece being conveyed on edge at high speed in a belt conveyor can find itself in a position in which its bottom edge does not touch the slide bed of the conveyor (the mailpiece is “flying”). In which case, the top edge of the mailpiece can find itself in a free zone between two belts, and the franking mark on the surface of the mailpiece can thus find itself either partially hidden by a belt or partially visible in the vicinity of the top edge of the mailpiece. In such critical situations, a cancellation mark cannot be printed in such a manner as to be centered on the franking mark.
An object of the present invention is to provide a simple solution for canceling mailpieces of different sizes passing through a belt conveyor, including mailpieces that are in critical situations as indicated above.
To this end, the invention provides an apparatus comprising:
The basic idea of the invention is thus mainly to cancel the franking marks with cancellation marks of size that is variable but that is adapted to a critical situation. For example, when the mailpiece has its top edge placed between two consecutive belts and thus has, for example, a franking duty mark partially hidden by a belt, a cancellation mark that is smaller than the cancellation mark that can be printed normally over a franking duty mark that is fully visible between two consecutive belts is printed on the visible portion of the partially hidden franking duty mark. In addition, the cancellation mark can be printed in off-center manner over the franking mark. A cancellation mark of 40 millimeters (mm) by 40 mm in size can, for example, cover an area of the franking mark of as little as 4 mm by 4 mm.
Digital print heads exist that have multiple inkjets disposed in stages, e.g. the inkjet print heads distributed by Image. The nozzles of such a print head can thus be controlled in packets or stages of nozzles that are individually actuatable, and it is thus possible, for example, to print a pattern with the entire section of the print head, with three-quarters of the section of the print head, with one half of the section of the print head, or indeed with one quarter of the section of the print head.
It can be understood that the apparatuses disclosed by Documents EP-906792 and US2004/0218958 that do not determine whether the franking mark is off-center in a free zone do not make it possible for the cancellation mark to be printed partially.
Advantageously, such partial printing of the invention avoids spraying ink outside the mailpiece when said mailpiece is of small format, e.g. if its top edge is situated in the free zone defined between the top two belts. In addition to avoiding soiling the machine as a whole, and in particular the detector means, partial printing also avoids unnecessary ink consumption.
In a particular embodiment of the invention, the detector means comprise a camera suitable for taking a digital image of the face of the mailpiece, and data processor means suitable for identifying said franking marks in said digital image by contrast analysis.
In another embodiment of the invention, the detector means comprise a camera and data processor means suitable for detecting fluorescent or phosphorescent zones on the surface of a mailpiece.
In addition, the apparatus of the invention can have the following features:
The invention also provides a sorting machine including cancelling apparatus as described hereinabove.
The apparatus of the invention can be understood even more clearly on reading the following description of an embodiment shown in the drawing, in which:
As shown in
On an upstream portion of said conveyor segment (in the direction of movement of the mailpieces), a plurality of inkjet print heads of the print mechanism 6 are mutually superposed in such a manner as to be interposed between the belts 5. The downstream portion of this conveyor segment in the direction of movement of the mailpieces is a kind of delay line in which the mailpieces bearing the ink cancellation marks dry naturally. In this zone, an ink drier zone can be added (with drying being by ultraviolet (UV) radiation, forced-air, etc.).
In each free zone such as 9A, four rectangles that are of different sizes indicated by the values 1, ¾, ½, and ¼ are used to show four possibilities of printing a cancellation mark by a print head such as 6A.
In the invention, each print head is a digital print head having a plurality of inkjets in stages in a vertical direction that is perpendicular to the direction of movement of the mailpieces. The inkjets of a print head are thus controllable selectively, thereby making it possible to print only a portion of a cancellation mark, or a scaled-down version of that cancellation mark by actuating only 1 jet, 2 jets, or 3 jets of the print head.
As can be seen in
In accordance with the invention, the print heads are controlled selectively in this way, and the size of the cancellation mark is adapted to the position in space of the franking mark, by virtue of the fact that the processor unit 7 is arranged to detect the franking mark(s) such as 10 in the digital image of the surface of a mailpiece that is taken by the camera 3, and to locate each franking mark within the outline of the mailpiece and relative to the locations of the free zones so as to determine, for each detected franking mark, whether said mark is off-center in a free zone. If the franking mark is detected as being off-center, and as a function of the area of the franking mark that is visible in the free zone 9A-9D, the size of the cancellation mark is adjusted by a program to match the size of said visible area.
The franking marks in the image can be detected by searching the image for fluorescent zones when the surface of the mailpiece is subjected to blue light at the time at which the digital image is taken. Extracting the outline of the mailpiece can be performed in known manner by contrast analysis.
In the field of mail handling, postage marks are sometimes printed with a phosphorescent ink. Such marks are detected by subjecting the surface of the mailpiece to conventional white light. In which case, the invention makes provision for the franking marks in the image to be detected by searching the image for phosphorescent zones. Similarly, the outline of the mailpiece is extracted in known manner by contrast analysis.
The signal delivered by the sensor 4 enables the control unit 7 to calculate the length of each ordinary mailpiece, and, on this basis, when appropriate to repeat automatically the printing of a cancellation mark over a plurality of franking marks situated in the same free zone 9A-9D in the direction of movement of the mailpiece. It is understood that a plurality of print heads can be actuated at the same time if a plurality of franking marks are disposed in vertical superposition on the surface of the mailpiece without going beyond the ambit of the invention.
In accordance with the invention, the processor unit 7 is also arranged to detect, in the digital image of the surface of the mailpiece, the positions of the franking marks within the outline of the mailpiece relative to the direction of conveying 2. In which case, the processor unit 7 causes the print heads to operate with a certain amount of delay or with a certain amount of advance in response to a signal delivered by the pass sensor 4 for sensing when the leading edge of each mailpiece goes past. The cancellation mark is thus printed in dynamically adaptive manner and such that it is centered in the conveyor direction 2 on the franking mark.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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0754468 | Apr 2007 | FR | national |
This application is a 35 U.S.C. §371 National Phase Application from PCT/FR2008/050604, filed Apr. 4, 2008, and designating the United States, which claims the benefit of France Patent Application No. 0754468, filed Apr. 13, 2007.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/FR08/50604 | 4/4/2008 | WO | 00 | 6/27/2008 |