Wireless laser scanning bar code symbol reading system employing a low-battery protection circuit, vibrational alarm and sleep mode of operation

• US 20050121523A1
• Filed: 07/01/2003
• Published: 06/09/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 12/03/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Metrologic Instruments Incorporated (Honeywell International Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Metrologic Instruments Incorporated (Honeywell International Inc.)
• Inventors: Zhu, Xiaoxun, Knowles, C. Harry, Au, Ka Man, Giordano, Patrick, Schmidt, Mark, Wilz, David M. Sr., Colavito, Stephen J., Xu, Congwei, Wang, Lin, Jiang, Min, Hudrick, Donald T., Russell, Garrett, Shi, Shamei, Jin, Hongjian, Hu, Meng, Byun, Sung, Blake, Robert, Bonanno, John, Rockstein, George, Ji, MingQing
• Granted Patent: US 7,137,561 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 235/462.460
• CPC Class Codes: B82Y 15/00 Nanotechnology for interacting, sensing or actuating, e.g. quantum dots as markers in protein assays or molecular motors
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 2207/1012 Special detection of object
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10 by electromagnetic radiation, e.g. optical sensing; by corpuscular radiation
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10544 by scanning of the records by radiation in the optical part of the electromagnetic spectrum
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10564 Light sources
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10584 Source control
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10594 Beam path
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10603 Basic scanning using moving elements
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10663 using hologram
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10673 Parallel lines
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10693 for omnidirectional scanning
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10702 Particularities of propagating elements, e.g. lenses, mirrors G06K7/10831 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10792 Special measures in relation to the object to be scanned
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10801 Multidistance reading
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10811 Focalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10851 Circuits for pulse shaping, amplifying, eliminating noise signals, checking the function of the sensing device basic electronic circuitry H03
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10861 sensing of data fields affixed to objects or articles, e.g. coded labels postal sorting B07C3/14, conveying articles B65G47/48
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10871 randomly oriented data-fields, code-marks therefore, e.g. concentric circles-code
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10881 constructional details of hand-held scanners
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10891 the scanner to be worn on a finger or on a wrist
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/14 : using light without selection of wavelength, e.g. sensing reflected white light G06K7/10831 - G06K7/1097 take precedence

Abstract

Disclosed is an automatically-activated wireless code symbol reading system comprising a bar code symbol reading mechanism contained within a hand-supportable housing having a manually-activatable data transmission switch. During symbol reading operations, the bar code symbol reading mechanism automatically generates a visible laser scanning pattern for repeatedly reading one or more bar code symbols on an object during a bar code symbol reading cycle, and automatically generating a new symbol character data string in response to each bar code symbol read thereby. During system operation, the user visually aligns the visible laser scanning pattern with a particular bar code symbol on an object (e.g. product, bar code menu, etc.) so that the bar code symbol is scanned, detected and decoded in a cyclical manner. Each time the scanned bar code symbol is successfully read during a bar code symbol reading cycle, a new bar code symbol character string is produced, while an indicator light on the hand-supportable housing is actively driven. During the bar code symbol reading cycle, the user actuates the data transmission switch producing a data transmission control activation signal and enabling a currently or subsequently produced symbol character data string to be automatically selected and transmitted to the host system. By virtue of the present invention, automatically-activated hand-supportable bar code symbol readers are now able to accurately read, in an unprecedented manner, bar code symbols on bar code menus, consumer products positioned in crowded point-of-sale environments, and other objects requiring automatic identification and/or information access.

Claims

1-92. -92. (canceled)

93. A wireless laser bar code symbol reading system, comprising:

a wireless hand-supportable bar code symbol reader in two-way RF communication with a base station operably connected to a host system, by way of an RF-based wireless data communication link over which two-way communication of data packets can occur in a reliable manner,

wherein said wireless hand-supportable bar code reader has an operational mode and a sleep mode, and further includes

(1) a hand-supportable housing;

(2) a laser-scanning bar code symbol reading mechanism, including a laser diode source, disposed in said hand-supportable housing, for automatically producing a visible laser scanning pattern, reading a bar code symbol on an object using said visible laser scanning pattern, and producing a symbol character data string representative of said read bar code symbol;

(3) a first RF-based transceiver circuit, disposed in said hand-supportable housing, for transmitting data packets corresponding to said produced symbol character data string, over said RF-based wireless data communication link, to said base station for subsequent transmission to said host system;

(4) a battery device for producing a voltage for use in driving electrical components contained within said hand-supportable housing;

(5) a low battery condition detection circuit disposed within said hand-supportable housing, for automatically monitoring the voltage state of said battery device and generating a control signal upon automatic detection of a low voltage state in said battery device;

(6) a low battery-voltage alarm device disposed within said hand-supportable housing, for producing a low-voltage alarm signal in response to the generation of said control signal; and

(7) a device controller, disposed within said hand-supportable housing, for automatically driving said wireless hand-supportable bar code reader into said operational state by activating said laser scanning bar code symbol reading mechanism and said first RF-based transceiver circuit when not receiving said control signal, and for automatically driving said wireless hand-supportable bar code reader into said sleep state by deactivating said laser diode and said first RF transceiver circuit when receiving said control signal.

94. The wireless laser scanning bar code symbol reading system of claim 93, wherein said base station includes

(1) a base station housing, and

(2) a second RF-based transceiver circuit, disposed within said base station housing, for receiving the data packets corresponding to said symbol character data string transmitted over said RF-based wireless data communication link, from said first RF-based transceiver circuit.