Method and device for measuring a position of a passing sheet

• US 20020177918A1
• Filed: 04/15/2002
• Published: 11/28/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 04/14/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Heidelberger Druckmaschinen Ag
• Original Assignee: Heidelberger Druckmaschinen Ag
• Inventors: Pierel, Frank, Huschle, Carsten, Buck, Helmut
• Granted Patent: US 6,845,288 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/124
• CPC Class Codes: B65H 2220/01 indicating an entity as a function of which control, adjustment or change is performed, i.e. input
• CPC Class Codes: B65H 2220/02 indicating an entity which is controlled, adjusted or changed by a control process, i.e. output
• CPC Class Codes: B65H 2220/03 indicating an entity which is measured, estimated, evaluated, calculated or determined but which does not constitute an entity which is adjusted or changed by the control process per se
• CPC Class Codes: B65H 2511/20 Location in space
• CPC Class Codes: B65H 2511/23 Coordinates, e.g. three dimensional coordinates
• CPC Class Codes: B65H 2511/24 Irregularities, e.g. in orientation or skewness
• CPC Class Codes: B65H 2511/413 of image
• CPC Class Codes: B65H 2511/512 Marks, e.g. invisible to the human eye; Patterns
• CPC Class Codes: B65H 2511/514 Particular portion of element
• CPC Class Codes: B65H 2553/42 Cameras
• CPC Class Codes: B65H 2701/131 Edges
• CPC Class Codes: B65H 2701/1322 corner
• CPC Class Codes: B65H 7/06 responsive to presence of faulty articles or incorrect separation or feed B65H7/14 takes precedence

Abstract

The position of sheets in a printing press is measured. A problem in transporting sheets through the printing press is how to guarantee the correct orientation and lay of the sheets, which must be guaranteed particularly in the printing operation. There is provided a device for precisely determining and correcting the positions of sheets in printing presses. Margin regions of a sheet are respectively imaged, projection data are transmitted to a computing unit, and the position of the sheet is calculated with the aid of the projection data by way of an image recognition algorithm. Furthermore, the computed positions of the sheet are compared to positions which are stored in the computing unit, and from the comparison, position deviations are computed, which are transmitted to the printing press and corrected by way of a sheet registration device.

Claims

1. A method of measuring a position of a passing sheet, which comprises:

transporting a sheet past an image generation system;

imaging margin regions of the sheet and generating projection data;

transmitting the projection data to a computing unit; and

calculating the position of the sheet from the projection data with an image recognition algorithm.

2. The method according to claim 1, which comprises:

comparing calculated positions of the sheets to stored positions in the computing unit;

computing position deviations from a result of the comparing step;

transmitting the position deviations to the printing press; and

correcting the position deviations with a sheet registration device in the printing press.

3. The method according to claim 1, which comprises determining the position of the imaged sheet with the aid of sheet corners defined from the projection data.

4. The method according to claim 1, which comprises taking multiple images of an individual margin region of the sheet being transported through the printing press;

and forming average values from the projection data in the computing unit.

5. The method according to claim 4, which comprises statistically evaluating the average values.

6. The method according to claim 1, which comprises computing sections of the margin regions of a projection with the computing unit;

and computing the position of the sheet with the aid of the sections of the projection data by the image recognition algorithm.

7. A device for measuring a position of a passing sheet in a sheet-processing device, the device comprising:

a projection device for imaging the sheet in the sheet-processing device; and

a computing unit connected to said projection device for evaluating imaging data received from said projection device, for evaluating projections of said projection device.

8. The device according to claim 7, wherein the sheet-processing device is one of a printing press, a printer, and a copier.

9. The device according to claim 7, wherein said projection device comprises a two-dimensional position-sensitive sensor surface for detecting at least one corner of the sheet.

10. The device according to claim 9, which comprises at least one positioning element or allocated to said computing unit.

11. The device according to claim 10, wherein said at least one positioning element is a drive driving a conveyor belt.

12. The device according to claim 10, wherein said at least one positioning element is a pulling device for pulling the sheet.

13. The device according to claim 7, wherein said projection device contains at least two CCD cameras.

14. The device according to claim 7, wherein said computing unit is programmed with an image recognition algorithm.