WO2012039594A1

WO2012039594A1 - Imaging device and imaging device attachment

Info

Publication number: WO2012039594A1
Application number: PCT/MY2010/000177
Authority: WO
Inventors: Kwee Hiang Lee
Original assignee: Pradotec Corporation Sdn. Bhd.
Priority date: 2010-09-24
Filing date: 2010-09-24
Publication date: 2012-03-29

Abstract

An imaging device (100) is disclosed comprising a housing (102), a platen (104) for supporting a document to be imaged. At least one document guide (106, 108) extends from a portion (110) of the housing adjacent an edge of the platen across and generally parallel to the platen and defining a channel (114) therewith for receiving a document to be imaged. A sloping guide (124) also extends from the housing. The document guides press the document flat against the platen (104).

Description

Imaging device and imaging device attachment

The invention relates to an imaging device and to an imaging device attachment. In particular, the invention relates to an imaging device or imaging device attachment having features for locating a document relative to the platen of the imaging device.

In the present specification, the phrase "imaging device" is to be taken to mean a device which obtains an image of a document by scanning the document through a translucent platen. For example, the term includes scanners and photocopiers.

Existing scanners and photocopiers typically include a lid to be closed over the platen. The lid generally serves two purposes: to reflect light back to the scanning optics in areas of the platen not covered by a document; and to press the document being imaged against the platen. The latter purpose is important to ensure that the document is perpendicular to the optical axis of the scanning optics, to avoid distortion of the image, to avoid undesirable reflections from the document, and to reduce light leak.

In some applications, the operators of imaging devices are reluctant to use the lid, for example because of the time required to close and reopen the lid before and after imaging compared with the imaging itself, or because, in some cases, it may be easier to ensure the appropriate orientation of the document to be imaged by hand than by use of the lid.

The invention is defined in the independent claims. Some optional features of the invention are defined in the dependent claims.

Various advantages may be realized with such an imaging device or attachment. For. instance, at least in one preferred form, it may assist in ensuring the accurate imaging of documents without distortions, undesirable reflections or light leaks. The invention will now be described, by way of example only, and with reference to the accompanying figures, in which:

Figure 1 is a perspective view of a scanner;

Figure 2A is a perspective view of a part of a device for locating a document relative to the platen of an imaging device;

Figure 2B is a further perspective view of the part shown in Figure 2A;

Figure 3 is a side view of the scanner shown in Figure 1;

Figure 4 is an exploded perspective view of the scanner shown in Figures 1 and 4, showing the assembly of the device for locating a document relative to the scanner; and

Figure 5A, 5B and 5C show the scanner of Figure 1 with a document being inserted.

Turning now to Figure 1, an imaging device in the form of a scanner 100 comprises a housing 102. A glass platen 104 supports a document (see Figure 5) to be imaged. Two spaced apart document guides 106, 108 extend from a portion 110 (see Figure 4) of the housing adjacent an edge 112 of the platen. The document guides 106, 108 extend across the platen and are generally parallel to it. In view of these guides orientation generally parallel to the platen, they are herein referred to as "parallel document guides" to distinguish them from a sloping document guide, discussed later.

A channel 114 is defined between the parallel document guides and the platen for receiving a document to be imaged.

In one implementation, the parallel document guides 106, 108 comprise respective contact portions 116, 118 for pressing upon the document, thereby urging the document against the platen 104. Furthermore, the parallel document guides 106, 108 are resiliently biased towards the platen. In one embodiment, this is achieved by a spring mechanism, for example leaf springs, mounted in the guides. In another embodiment, the biasing of the guides is achieved by virtue of the guides being formed of a resilient material, for example a plastics material such as ABS, and arranged such that they are biased towards platen 104. For instance, the parallel document guides 106 108 may be arranged to extend from portion 110 at an angle such that they are pressed against the surface of platen 104.

The parallel document guides 106, 108 also comprise, at free distal ends thereof, respective lips 120, 122 turned away from the platen to facilitate insertion of a document into the channel. These lips are particularly. useful when document guides 106, 108 are comprised of resilient material and arranged such that the document guides 106 108 are biased into contact with the surface of platen 104. Insertion of a document to be scanned underneath 120, 122 causes the document guides 106, 108 to deform, being displaced from platen 104. A document to be scanned is then held in place by the downward biasing force caused by the deformation of resilient document guides 106, 108.

As seen in Figure 3, the imaging device also comprises a sloping document guide 124, which extends from the portion 110 of the housing 102 at an acute angle to the platen. Accordingly, as seen in Figures 5B and 5C, when a document is inserted into the channel 114 between the platen 104 and the parallel document guides 106, 108, the sloping document guide 124 urges a leading edge of the document inserted into the channel against the platen.

Turning to Figure 3, the imaging device further comprises a hood 126, which extends from the housing to a distal end 128 of the sloping document guide 124.

In the foregoing, the device for locating the document has been described as part of an imaging device as a whole. It will be clear to the skilled addressee, however, that the device may be a separate attachment which is fitted to an existing imaging device. To facilitate this, with reference to Figures 2A and 2B, the sloping document guide 124 includes a fixing mechanism, in the form of apertures 130a, b, c for fixing the sloping document guide 124 to the hood 126, while Figure 4 illustrates an exploded view of these parts prior to assembly. In turn, the hood comprises angled

protrusions 132a, b, c (132c not visible in Figure 4) for interlocking with

corresponding apertures 134a, b, c in housing 102 of the imaging device around the platen 104. Furthermore, the proximal end 136 of the sloping document guide 124 forms a base portion 138 which sits on the edge of the platen, abutting against the edge of the housing. The base portion 138 includes apertures 140a, b, c for the attachment of parallel document guides. In the embodiment shown, the two parallel document guides 106, 108 are attached to the outer apertures 140a, c.

Thus, the hood 126, the sloping document guide 124 and the parallel document guides 106, 108 are assembled into a single assembly which may be fixed to an imaging device.

Turning to Figure 5, to use the device, the edge of a passport or other document 142 is inserted under the upturned lips at the distal ends of the parallel document guides. The ends of the guides are lifted from the platen by the passport (Figure 5A). As the passport is advanced into the channel between the parallel guides and the platen, the base portion of the sloping guide portion is also lifted from the platen (Figure 5B). By virtue of the forming of the parallel guides and the sloping guide from a resilient plastics material, such as ABS, the guides exert a force against the passport, pressing it flat against the platen. In a least one implementation, the guides can be considered to be semi-rigid (or, conversely, at least partially resilient), producing a spring-like effect. These are flexible enough to allow a document such as a passport to slide under them yet stiff enough to press the document down securely for scanning. Documents having pages, such as bound pages, are spread evenly against the scanning surface to enable a scanned image without distortion and white light leaks. Housing 102 may provide an ancillary benefit of serving to block external light from interfering with a scan of a document and also to protect a user from any stray ultraviolet light used in the scanning process which might otherwise be harmful to a user's eyes.

It will also be appreciated that the scanning device may be a full-page electronic passport scanner which also comprises a built-in RFID reader to read electronic passport chips. In one implementation, the device is a multi-functional electronic passport reader. Such a device is built with multiple reading capabilities and implements, for example, a 3.0 megapixel Image Sensor for Document Image Capturing, built-in RFID Reading capabilities as well as contact card reading capability. With multiple document reading features, the device provides improved performance and enhanced information retrieving and processing speeds, thus efficiently reducing the reading and verification time for documents.

In one implementation, the device is provided with a dual RFID antenna, whereby the RFID Chip contained in a document, such as a passport or other travel document, can be detected regardless of the chip location in the document. The device may be configured so that the dual RFID reader works in parallel with the image data capturing, thus reducing the reading and information retrieval time as compared to manual methods and/or devices that have only a single RFID reader whereby a user may need wait for the document (for example a passport booklet) to be scanned first, then repositioned, such as by flipping over, for the RFID portion to be read, as different countries may place their RFID chips on different pages and/or positions for that country's passports. In one implementation of the device, the RFID reading speed (baud rate) is up to 848kbps.

As noted above, the device may be provided with contact card reading capability. In this context, a contact card is a smart card compliant to the IS07816 standard where it has a contact area of approximately 1 square centimetre comprising of gold-plated contact pads. The phrase is a generic term for smart cards with a contact interface, such as the Malaysian National ID Card, whereby the card has five or six contact points for information transfer via the reader. Unlike" contactless cards" which are known as Contactless RFID Cards, information is transferred via radio signal, thus the term 'contactless'.

For use with such a device, an RFID chip embedded in an electronic passport is a close proximity RF Chip, a 13.56MHz proximity card where the reader can read the card in contactless, close proximity of less than 2 inch; distance.

Contact cards compliant with IS07816 that can be read from such a device could be a National ID Card, e.g. Malaysian MyKad, European ID Card, Driver's License etc. However, the device may be operable with any travel document that uses an IS07816 compliant contact card. Additionally, the device may be operable to read travel documents such as ICAO 9303 compliant electronic passports.

For electronic passport documents, these documents may be required to be both scanned -- for example, to have an image of the bearer's information acquired by the device as described above— to check for the security features with one or more different light sources. For instance, it may be necessary for the bearer's information to be scanned using white light, UV light (for embedded security marks) and/or Infrared light as well as with other light sources. Simultaneously or sequentially, data from the RFID chip may be read and retrieved for electronic passport applications to ensure that the information loaded in the chip cross-references (for example, is identical with) the printed information on the passport datapage. When a device is configured for both scanning and RFID chip reading to be performed simultaneously, such a device offers an efficient single-step document reading solution where optical and electronic data are retrieved in parallel. A document scanning device as disclosed herein may be provided with any or all of the following functional specification features:

• the ability to scan document pages using any or all of the visible (white) light, infrared light (B900), and ultraviolet light, particularly UV-A, light.

• A scanning sensor, such as a three megapixel sensor arranged in an array of 2048 x 1536 pixels.

• 380 dpi resolution

• colour depth of 24 bits/pixel RGB

·, a dual camera system with built-in DSP

• scanning formats such as JPG, PNG, JPG2000 and BMP.

The contactless interface may be provided according to the following specification:

• Standard: ISO/IEC 14443, Part 2/3/4, Type A/B ICAO Doc 9303

• Antenna: Dual

• Baud Rate: Max. 848kbps (travel document dependent)

• Security: Active Authentication (AA), Passive Authentication (PA), Basic Access Control (BAC), Extended Access Control (EAC)

The contact card interface may be a built-in contact card slot reader for IS07816 compliant contact card reading and be provided according to the following specification:

• Standard: IS07816, Part 1/2/3, T=0/1

• Slots: l x lD-1 Card Slot, 2 x lD-0 SAM Slots

• Baud Rate: 9.6kbps - 115.2kbps (card type dependent)

• Voltage: Class A/B (5V/3V).

A status LED may be provided to apprise a user of the status of operation of the scanner.

A USB 2.0 port is provided to interface with PCs and other external devices.

Alternatively or additionally, the device may be configured to communicate wirelessly in a WLAN and/or using short-range communication protocols such as the Bluetooth (TM) protocol. Thus, the device offers common PC programming interfaces and control mechanisms, such as a standard PC/SC applications. SAM slots are provided for added security and to enable information retrieval from contact cards.

A device as disclosed herein may be considered to be of an ergonomic design, enabling a user to operate the device using one hand.

A device as disclosed herein can be utilised in a number of contexts:

• hospitality

• access control, such as border control (at, say, an immigration counter for travel document checking and verification), airline security and embassy security

• OEM into auto gate & kiosk.

In terms of a Software Development Kit (SDK) for the device, all SDK libraries may be available in Win32 APIs. The libraries may also be DotNet compatible. All SDKs may be provided with header files, library files, sample source code and the sample program. All SDKs may be usable with the Visual C++ programming tools and MS Visual Studio 2005 (UVB .net, C#).

The optical scanner SDK may be equipped with document auto-detection features. Thus, a device as disclosed herein is able to capture passport data pages and present it in three different views: normal light view, infrared view, and UV view. The device may be able to extract and/or isolate a photograph of the bearer of a passport from the passport datapage. Further, the device may be able to extract the MRZ data and convert it to text. Yet further, the device may be able to perform security checks such as a B9000 ink check and/or a MRZ data checksum status. Available SDKs may include any or all of an optical scanner SDK, a MyKad/MyKid PC/SC SDK (Malaysia Specific), a PC/SC Contact Card SDK and a PC/SC Contactless Card SDK.

It will be appreciated that the invention has been described by way of example only and various modifications may be made to the techniques described herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the appended claims.

Claims

1. An imaging device comprising:

a housing;

a platen for supporting a document to be imaged; and

at least one document guide extending from a portion of the housing adjacent an edge of the platen across and generally parallel to the platen and defining a channel therewith for receiving a document to be imaged.

2. An imaging device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the at least one parallel document guide comprises at least one contact portion for pressing upon the document, thereby urging the document against the platen.

3. An imaging device as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2, wherein the at least one parallel document guide is resiliency biased towards the platen.

4. An imaging device as claimed in any of the preceding claims, wherein the at least one parallel document guide includes, at a free end thereof, a lip turned away from the platen to facilitate insertion of a document into the channel.

5. An imaging device as claimed in any of the preceding claims, including at least two spaced apart parallel document guides.

6. An imaging device as claimed in any of the preceding claims, further comprising a sloping document guide extending from said portion of the housing at an acute angle to the platen such that the sloping document guide urges a leading edge of a document inserted into the channel against the platen.

7. An imaging device as claimed in any of the preceding claims, further comprising a hood extending from the housing to a distal end of the sloping document guide.

8. An imaging device attachment for locating a document with respect to a platen of an imaging device, the attachment comprising:

a fixing mechanism for fixing the attachment adjacent the platen of an imaging device; and

at least one parallel document guide extending from an edge of the platen such that, in use, the at least one parallel document guide and the platen are substantially parallel to one another and together define a channel for receiving a document to be imaged.

9. An attachment as claimed in claim 8, wherein the at least one parallel document guide comprises at least one contact portion for pressing upon the document, thereby urging the document against the platen.

10. An attachment as claimed in claim 8 or claim 9, wherein the at least one parallel document guide is resiliently biased towards the platen.

11. An attachment as claimed in any claims 8 to 10, wherein the at least one parallel document guide includes, at a distal end thereof relative to the edge of the platen, a lip turned away from the platen to facilitate insertion of a document into the channel.

12. An attachment as claimed in any of claims 8 to 11, including at least two spaced apart parallel document guides.

13. An attachment as claimed in any of claims 8 to 12, further comprising a sloping document guide extending from the base at an acute angle to the platen, when in use, such that the sloping document guide urges a leading edge of a document inserted into the channel against the platen.

14. A document locating device for locating a document with respect to the platen of an imaging device, the document locating device comprising biasing means extending across and generally parallel to the platen and defining therewith a channel into which a document may be inserted, the biasing means being resiliently biased such that it presses a document inserted into the channel, thereby urging it against the platen of the imaging device.