Hand-held scanner with impulse radio wireless interface
First Claim
1. A hand-held scanner with an impulse radio wireless interface comprising:
- a housing having an elongate shape with a scanning end and a rear end;
optical detector means, located within said housing, for detecting relative intensity of light reflected from a surface, said surface may contain characters or symbols thereon;
an impulse radio interface, interfacing with said optical detector means and in communication with an impulse radio transmitter, wherein said impulse radio transmitter transmits scanned information to a remote location by impulse radio means.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
A scanner for reading characters from a string of characters recorded on a surface as well as reading bar code information encoded in bar codes. Upon obtaining either the text or the bar code information, the information is transferred to a remote location via impulse radio wireless techniques. The character or bar code scanner may include a lens of variable magnification so as to accommodate variable size print. The scanner is in communication with an external information processing apparatus such as a computer through an impulse radio wireless transmitter/receiver. The value of each pixel detected by the scanner is determined by comparing the light reflection value with a threshold that is adjusted in accordance with the values of pixels detected and averaged over previous frames. The hand-held scanner and impulse radio transceiver and impulse radio antenna may be housed in any elongate housing for pen-like use or in a palm-held housing such as a typical mouse. The novel impulse radio wireless interface allows large data throughput while avoiding many traditional wireless shortfalls such as multipath and RF and optical interference. Distance determination by impulse radio means provides for varying the data rates of the communication between the impulse radio and a remote device based on said distance and allows for a warning that the distance from said remote device to said scanner is exceeding a predetermined limit.
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Citations
36 Claims
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1. A hand-held scanner with an impulse radio wireless interface comprising:
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a housing having an elongate shape with a scanning end and a rear end;
optical detector means, located within said housing, for detecting relative intensity of light reflected from a surface, said surface may contain characters or symbols thereon;
an impulse radio interface, interfacing with said optical detector means and in communication with an impulse radio transmitter, wherein said impulse radio transmitter transmits scanned information to a remote location by impulse radio means. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
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14. A package information assimilation system, comprising:
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a scanner, said scanner comprising an optical digitizer for detecting line bar codes from a surface and a bar code processor for interpreting the output of said digitizer; and
an impulse radio interface interfacing with said bar code processor in communication with an impulse radio transmitter for transmitting by impulse radio means the output of said bar code processor.
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22. A method of bar code information assimilation, comprising the steps of:
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scanning a bar code with a bar code scanner;
obtaining information contained within said bar code; and
transmitting said bar code information to a remote location by impulse radio means. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32)
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28. A method of scanning text information from a hand-held scanner, comprising the steps of:
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scanning text with a hand-held scanner, said hand held scanner including an impulse radio interface and an impulse radio transmitter therein; and
transmitting said text information to a remote location by impulse radio means.
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33. A computer program product comprising a computer readable medium having computer program code, for executing scanning and impulse radio transmissions, said product including:
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conversion process procedure codes for obtaining text information from a scanning device and converting said text or bar code information into digital information for transmission by impulse radio wireless techniques to a remote computer; and
transmission process procedure codes for transmitting by impulse radio means the scanned and converted digital information. - View Dependent Claims (34, 35, 36)
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Specification