Patent Application
20250001772
This application is based on and claims priority under 35 USC 119 from Japanese Patent Application No. 2023-106491 filed Jun. 28, 2023.
The present invention relates to a medium supply system and an image forming system.
A sheet supply apparatus described in JP2015-24868A includes: a tray on which a stack of sheets, which is formed with a plurality of vertically stacked sheets, can be placed; an air blowing section that blows air toward the stack of sheets placed on the tray to float at least a topmost sheet; a sucking and conveying section that is disposed above the tray and sucks the topmost sheet floated by the air blowing section and conveys the topmost sheet in a prescribed conveying direction; a first light source that emits first slit light, which is strip-shaped light having a component extending vertically, the first slit light crossing at least a first edge of a first sheet and a second edge of a second sheet below the first sheet, the first sheet and the second sheet being part of a plurality of floated sheets; an image capture section that captures an image of the first slit light, emitted to the first sheet and the second sheet, and is oriented in an image capture direction that is different, in a plane parallel to the first sheet and the second sheet, from a direction in which the first slit light is emitted from the first light source; a calculating section that calculates a vertical clearance between the first sheet and the second sheet according to the image of the first slit light, the image being captured by the image capture section; and an air amount adjusting section that adjusts an amount of air to be blown by the air blowing section, according to the vertical clearance between the first sheet and the second sheet, the vertical clearance being calculated by the calculating section.
Aspects of non-limiting embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a medium supply system that prevents supply of a recording medium that is folded as compared with a case where a recording medium is supplied without checking whether or not a fold is generated in the recording medium.
Aspects of certain non-limiting embodiments of the present disclosure address the above advantages and/or other advantages not described above. However, aspects of the non-limiting embodiments are not required to address the advantages described above, and aspects of the non-limiting embodiments of the present disclosure may not address advantages described above.
According to an aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a medium supply system comprising:
Examples of a medium supply apparatus and an image forming apparatus according to an embodiment of the present disclosure will be described with reference to
As illustrated in
As illustrated in
The medium supply apparatus 10 further includes cameras 18 each being an example of an imaging unit that captures an image of the sheet members P in the state of being floated and separated by the air supplied by the supply unit 14, and an irradiation unit (not illustrated) that irradiates a portion of the sheet members P whose image is captured by the cameras 18 with light. The medium supply apparatus 10 further includes a control unit 40 (see
As illustrated in
The stacking unit 12 includes a pair of side guides 12b that regulate positions of both edges of the sheet members P stacked on the bottom plate 12a in the width direction (a direction of the arrow D in this example). At least one of the side guides 12b is attached so as to be slidable in the apparatus depth direction which is the width direction of the sheet member P. Thus, the side guide 12b is configured to regulate the positions of both the edges of the sheet member P in the width direction by sliding the side guide 12b in the apparatus depth direction in accordance with a size of the sheet member P.
As illustrated in
The suction unit 30 is disposed above a leading end portion of the uppermost sheet member P with a gap from the uppermost sheet member P in a stacked state. Then, the suction unit 30 sucks the uppermost floating sheet member P and moves to one side (left in the drawing) in the apparatus width direction in a state of sucking the sheet member P to transport the sheet member P. Here, the leading end portion of the sheet member P is a portion including at least a portion having a length of 10 from a leading end when a length of the sheet member P in a supply direction is 100.
The feeding roller 26 is disposed on one side in the apparatus width direction with respect to the suction unit 30, receives the sheet member P transported by the suction unit 30, and transports the received sheet member P toward the image forming unit 102 (see
As illustrated in
As illustrated in
Next, the supply unit 14, the control unit 40, and the like will be described.
As illustrated in
As illustrated in
In addition, a top plate of the duct 50 has a horizontal portion 50b extending in the apparatus depth direction and an inclined portion 50c inclined with respect to the horizontal direction when viewed from the apparatus width direction. Specifically, the horizontal portion 50b is formed on a side closer to the supply port 50a, and the inclined portion 50c is formed on a side opposite to the supply port 50a. The inclined portion 50c is inclined with respect to the horizontal direction such that the side closer to the supply port 50a is higher than the side opposite to the supply port 50a.
As illustrated in
With this configuration, as illustrated in
As illustrated in
The CPU 41 is a central processing unit, and executes various programs or controls each unit. That is, the CPU 41 reads the programs from the ROM 42 or the storage 44 and executes the programs using the RAM 43 as a work area. The CPU 41 performs control of the respective configurations and various types of arithmetic processing in accordance with the programs stored in the ROM 42 or the storage 44.
In this embodiment, for example, the ROM 42 or the storage 44 stores a determination program for determining whether or not a fold is generated in the stacked sheet members P from the images captured by the cameras 18. The fold is an example of a shape defect.
The RAM 43 serves as the work area and temporarily stores a program or data. The storage 44 is configured using a hard disk drive (HDD) or a solid state drive (SSD), and stores various programs including an operating system and various types of data.
The communication interface 45 is an interface for the control unit 40 to communicate with the cameras 18, the transport unit 16, the blower 54, the image forming unit 102, and the like, and a standard such as Ethernet (registered trademark), FDDI, or Wi-Fi (registered trademark) is used.
When driving programs are executed, the control unit 40 implements various functions using hardware resources. Functional configurations of the control unit 40 that enables the control unit 40 to implement the various functions will be described.
As illustrated in
Next, a determination process in which the control unit 40 of the medium supply apparatus 10 determines whether or not a fold is generated in the sheet members P stacked on the medium supply apparatus 10 will be described with reference to a flowchart of
When a plurality of sheet members P are stacked on the bottom plate 12a and the reception unit 46 of the control unit 40 receives an instruction to supply the sheet members P to the image forming unit 102, the operation unit 48 operates the pair of cameras 18 to capture images of the leading end portions of the stacked sheet members P from one side and the other side in the width direction of the sheet members P in step S100.
In step S200, the determination unit 47 determines whether or not a fold is generated in the leading end portions of the stacked sheet members P from the images captured by the camera 18. Specifically, the determination is performed separately for a fold generated in the leading end portion of the uppermost sheet member P (hereinafter, may be referred to as a “top sheet member P”) and a fold generated in the leading end portion of the sheet member P sandwiched between the sheet members P in the up-down direction (hereinafter, may be referred to as an “intermediate sheet member P”).
First, as an example, pattern matching is used to determine whether or not a fold is generated the leading end portion of the top sheet member P. Specifically, a plurality of triangular patterns (see
Then, the determination unit 47 evaluates a degree of similarity between a shape recognized in the image captured by the cameras 18 and the triangular pattern stored in advance. This evaluation is repeated for each of the triangular patterns. When the degree of similarity is equal to or higher than a predetermined threshold, the determination unit 47 determines that the fold is generated in the leading end portion of the top sheet member P. The degree of similarity can be evaluated using, for example, a cross-correlation coefficient between pixel values.
On the other hand, as an example, a pixel value of a captured image is used to determine whether or not a fold is generated in the intermediate sheet member P. To be more specific, when a fold is generated in the intermediate sheet member P, a crack S1 is formed between the sheet members P stacked in the up-down direction as illustrated in
Then, the determination unit 47 vertically scans the images captured by the cameras 18, and determines that the crack SI is generated when detecting that pixel values of RGB have values lower than predetermined thresholds. In other words, the determination unit 47 determines that the fold is generated in the leading end portion of the intermediate sheet member P.
The process proceeds to step S300 in a case where it is determined that the fold is generated in the leading end portion of the top sheet member P or in the leading end portion of the intermediate sheet member P or proceeds to step S310 in a case where it is determined that there is no fold in the leading end portions of the sheet members P.
In step S300, the operation unit 48 causes the cameras 18 not to operate, the generation of the fold in the sheet members P is displayed on a user interface (not illustrated), and the determination process is ended. In other words, the supply of the sheet member P is stopped, the generation of the fold in the sheet members P is displayed on the user interface (not illustrated), and the determination process is ended.
On the other hand, when it is determined that there is no fold in the leading end portions of the sheet members P the process proceeds to step S310, the operation unit 48 operates the blower 54 in step S310 to supply air to the sheet members P from the edge side of the sheet members P, thereby floating and separating the sheet member P.
In step S410, the determination unit 47 determines whether or not a fold is generated in the leading end portions of the floating and separated sheet members P from images captured by the cameras 18. Since the sheet members P are separated and floating, the above-described pattern matching is used for the determination of a fold of the intermediate sheet member P. Thus, the fold of the intermediate sheet member P is also determined with high accuracy.
Then, the process proceeds to step S300 in a case where it is determined that the fold is generated in the leading end portion of the sheet member P or proceeds to step S510 in a case where it is determined that there is no fold in the leading end portions of the sheet members P.
In step S510, the operation unit 48 operates the transport unit 16. Specifically, the operation unit 48 operates the suction unit 30 to suck the floating top sheet member P, and moves to one side in the apparatus width direction in a state of sucking the top sheet member P to transport the top sheet member P. Further, the operation unit 48 operates the feeding roller 26 to receive the top sheet member P transported by the suction unit 30 and transport the received top sheet member P toward the image forming unit 102.
In step S610, as the top sheet member P is transported, images of a rear end portion of the top sheet member P are captured by the cameras 18, and the determination unit 47 determines whether or not a fold is generated in the rear end portion of the top sheet member P being transported from the images captured by the cameras 18. The above-described pattern matching is used to determine the fold of the rear end portion of the top sheet member P. Thus, the fold of the rear end portion of the top sheet member P is also determined. Here, the rear end portion of the sheet member P is a portion including at least a portion having a length of 10 from a rear end when a length of the sheet member P in the supply direction is 100.
Then, in a case where it is determined that the fold is generated in the rear end portion of the top sheet member P, the process proceeds to step S300. In a case where it is determined that there is no fold in the rear end portion of the sheet member P, the operation of the blower 54 is continued, and the process proceeds to step S410 again to repeat the above-described process until a series of jobs is completed.
As described above, in the medium supply apparatus 10, the control unit 40 stops the supply of the sheet member P when the images of the folded sheet member P are captured by the cameras 18. Thus, the sheet member P that is folded is prevented from being supplied to the image forming unit 102 as compared with a case where the sheet member P is directly supplied to the image forming unit 102 without checking whether or not a fold is generated in the sheet member P.
In addition, in the medium supply apparatus 10, the cameras 18 are disposed on both sides in the width direction of the sheet member P to face the leading end portion of the sheet member P. Thus, as compared with a case where the cameras 18 are disposed only on one side in the width direction of the sheet member P, the accuracy of determining whether or not a fold is generated is improved.
In addition, the medium supply apparatus 10 is provided with the transport unit 16 that moves the cameras 18 and the top sheet member P relative to each other in a supply direction (transport direction) of the top sheet member P. Thus, it is possible to determine whether or not a fold is generated in the rear end portion of the sheet member P.
In addition, in the medium supply apparatus 10, the transport unit 16 transports the top sheet member P so that the cameras 18 and the top sheet member P move relative to each other in the supply direction (transport direction) of the top sheet member P. Thus, the number of components is reduced as compared with a case where a dedicated component for relatively moving the cameras 18 and the top sheet member P is provided.
In addition, in the medium supply apparatus 10, the cameras 18 captures images of the plurality of sheet members P floated by the air supplied from the supply unit 14. Thus, a fold of the intermediate sheet member P is determined more accurately as compared with a case where the fold of the intermediate sheet member P is determined by capturing images of the sheet members P in a stacked state.
In addition, in the medium supply apparatus 10, the cameras 18 are disposed on both the sides in the width direction of the sheet member P to face the leading end portion of the sheet member P, and the sheet member P and the cameras 18 move relative to each other. Thus, it is possible to determine whether or not a fold is generated in the rear end portion of the sheet member P on both the sides in the width direction.
In addition, formation of an image on the folded sheet member P is prevented in the image forming apparatus 100 as compared with a case where a medium supply apparatus, which supplies the sheet member P to the image forming unit 102 directly without checking whether or not a fold is generated in the sheet member P, is provided.
Although the specific embodiment of the present disclosure has been described in detail, the present disclosure is not limited to such an embodiment, and it is apparent to those skilled in the art that various other embodiments can be made within the scope of the present disclosure. For example, the cameras 18 are disposed on both the sides in the width direction of the sheet member P to face the leading end portion of the sheet member P in the embodiment, but a camera may be disposed on only one side in the width direction of the sheet member P. In this case, however, an effect achieved by disposing the cameras 18 on both the sides in the width direction of the sheet member P is not achieved.
Although the transport unit 16 is used to move the cameras 18 and the sheet member P relative to each other in the above embodiment, the cameras 18 and the sheet member P may be moved relative to each other by moving the cameras. In this case, however, an effect obtained by relatively moving the cameras 18 and the sheet member P using the transport unit 16 is not achieved.
Although the supply unit 14 which supplies air to the sheet members P to float the plurality of sheet members P is provided in the above embodiment, the supply unit 14 is not necessarily provided. In this case, however, an effect achieved by providing the supply unit is not achieved.
Although not particularly described in the above embodiment, the medium supply apparatus 10 and the image forming apparatus 100 may be each configured using a single apparatus or may be configured using a plurality of apparatuses.
A medium supply system comprising:
The medium supply system according to (((1))), wherein the imaging units are respectively disposed on both sides in a width direction of the recording media to face leading end portions of the recording media.
The medium supply system according to (((2))), further comprising a moving unit that relatively moves the imaging units and a recording medium from the leading end portion to a rear end portion of the recording medium in a supply direction of the recording media.
The medium supply system according to (((3))), wherein the moving unit is a transport unit that transports an uppermost stacked recording medium in the supply direction toward a processing apparatus that processes the recording medium.
The medium supply system according to any one of ((1)) to ((4)), further comprising
The medium supply system according to any one of ((1)) to ((5)), further comprising
The medium supply system according to (((6))), wherein the moving unit is a transport unit that transports an uppermost stacked recording medium in the supply direction of the recording media toward a processing apparatus that processes the recording medium.
An image forming system comprising:
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-106491 | Jun 2023 | JP | national |
