Automatically-activated hand-supportable laser scanning bar code symbol reading system with data transmission activation switch

• US 7,252,238 B2
• Filed: 04/25/2003
• Issued: 08/07/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/10/1990
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Metrologic Instruments Incorporated (Honeywell International Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Metrologic Instruments Incorporated (Honeywell International Inc.)
• Inventors: Schmidt, Mark, Wilz, David M. Sr., Blake, Robert E., Colavito, Stephen J., Rockstein, George B., Hudrick, Donald T., Russell, Garrett, Knowles, Carl Harry
• Primary Examiner(s): Kim; Ahshik
• Application Number:
  US10/424,545
• Publication Number:
  US 20040089721A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,565 Days
• Field of Search: 235/462.01, 235/462.08, 235/462.43, 235/462.44, 235/462.46, 235/462.48, 235/472.02
• US Class Current: 235/462.43
• 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 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. A method of reading bar code symbols on an object using a band-supportable automatic code symbol reading device having an automatic object detection mechanism for automatically detecting the presence of objects within a scanning field, an automatic code symbol reading mechanism for laser scanning detected objects in the scanning field, and a data transmission switch for activating a data transmission mechanism and selectively transmitting symbol character data to a host system, said method comprising the steps of:

(a) using said automatic object detection mechanism to automatically detect the presence of an object bearing one or more code symbols in said scanning field;

(b) in response to the automatic detection of the object in said scanning field, using said automatic code symbol reading mechanism to automatically and repeatedly read one or more code symbols on the object within a predetermined time period, and in response to each new successfully read of one of said code symbols within said predetermined time period, automatically producing a new symbol character data string representative of said read code symbol;

(c) a manually-actuating said data transmission switch within said predetermined time period; and

(d) in response to the manual actuation of said data transmission switch, automatically selecting one of said produced symbol character data strings and transmitting the selected symbol character data string from said data transmission mechanism to said host system operably connected to said hand-supportable automatic code symbol reading device.

2. The method of claim 1, which further comprises producing a visual indication upon the transmission of selected symbol character data to said host system.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein step (d) further comprises transmitting, by way of wireless electromagnetic transmission, the selected one of said symbol character data strings from said data transmission mechanism to a remote base station operably connected to said host system.

4. The method of claim 1, which further comprises:

displaying data on a display panel integrated with said hand-supportable code symbol reading device, and

manually entering data into said hand-supportable code symbol reading device using data entry device integrated with said hand-supportable code symbol reading device.

5. The method of claim 1, where said read code symbol is a bar code symbol selected from the group consisting of a 1D bar code symbol, a 2D bar code symbol, and a data matrix type code symbol.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein step (b) comprises said automatic code symbol reading mechanism automatically generating a laser scanning pattern in said scanning field and scanning the object and at least one code symbol on the object.

7. An automatically-activated code symbol reading system for automatically and repeatedly generating symbol character data strings, representative of a repetitively read code symbol on an object, and transmitting a selected one of said symbol character data strings to a host system operably connected to said automatically-activated code symbol reading system, said automatically-activated code symbol reading system comprising:

a hand-supportable housing;

an automatic object detection mechanism, disposed in said hand-supportable housing, for automatically detecting the presence of an object in a scanning field definable relative to said hand-supportable housing;

an automatic code symbol reading mechanism, disposed within said hand-supportable housing, for automatically generating, in response to the automatic detection of the object in said scanning field by said automatic object detection mechanism, a visible laser scanning pattern for repeatedly reading one or more code symbols on the object during a code symbol reading cycle, and automatically generating a new symbol character data string in response to each code symbol read by said automatic code symbol reading mechanism;

a data transmission mechanism, disposed in said hand-supportable housing, for transmitting a selected one of said symbol character data strings to a host system;

a manually-activatable data transmission switch integrated with said hand-supportable housing, for selecting one of said symbol character data strings for transmission to the host system by said data transmission mechanism;

wherein during system operation,

(i) the user visually aligns a visible laser scanning pattern generated by said automatic code symbol reading mechanism, with a particular code symbol on an object so that at least one said code symbol is scanned, detected and decoded in a cyclical manner, and each time the scanned code symbol is successfully read during said code symbol reading cycle, a new bar code symbol character string is produced, and

(ii) when the user manually actuates said data transmission switch during said code symbol reading cycle, a subsequently produced symbol character data string is automatically selected, and transmitted to said host system by said data transmission mechanism.

8. The automatically-activated code symbol reading system of claim 7, where said read code symbol is a bar code symbol selected from the group consisting of a 1D bar code symbol, a 2D bar code symbol, and a data matrix type code symbol.

9. A method for repeatedly generating symbol character data strings, representative of a repetitively read code symbol on an object, and transmitting a selected symbol character data string to a host system for storage and/or processing, said method comprising the steps of:

(a) supporting a hand-supportable automatic code symbol reading device adjacent an object bearing one or more code symbols to be read, said hand-supportable code symbol reading device having an automatic object detection mechanism for automatically detecting the presence of an object within a scanning field, an automatic code symbol reading mechanism for laser scanning detected objects in the scanning field, and a data transmission switch for activating a data transmission mechanism and transmitting selected symbol character data to the host system;

(b) automatically detecting the object in said scanning field using said automatic object detection mechanism;

(c) in response to the detection of the object by said automatic object detection mechanism, automatically generating a visible laser scanning pattern from said automatic code symbol reading mechanism;

(d) visually aligning said visible laser scanning pattern with one said code symbol on said object so that one said code symbol is scanned, detected and decoded in a cyclical manner, and each time said scanned code symbol is successfully read during a code symbol reading cycle, a new bar code symbol character string is automatically produced by said automatic code symbol reading mechanism; and

(e) within one said code symbol reading cycle, manually actuating said data transmission switch and, in response thereto, causing a currently or subsequently produced symbol character data string to be automatically selected, and transmitted to said host system by said data transmission mechanism, for storage and/or processing.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said read code symbol is a bar code symbol selected from the group consisting of a 1D bar code symbol, a 2D bar code symbol, and a data matrix type code symbol.

11. An automatically-activated code symbol reading system comprising:

a hand-supportable housing;

a bar code symbol reading engine, disposed in said hand-supportable housing, and including

(i) an automatic object detection mechanism for automatically detecting the presence of an object in a scanning field definable relative to said hand-supportable housing,

(ii) an automatic code symbol reading mechanism, disposed within said hand-supportable housing, for automatically generating, in response to the automatic detection of the object in said scanning field by said automatic object detection mechanism, a visible laser scanning pattern for repeatedly reading one or more code symbols on an object during a code symbol reading cycle, and automatically generating a new symbol character data string in response to each code symbol read thereby, and

(iii) a data transmission mechanism, disposed in said hand-supportable housing, for transmitting a selected one of said symbol character data strings to a host system;

a data transmission switch integrated with said hand-supportable housing, for selecting one of said symbol character data strings for transmission to the host system by said data transmission mechanism;

wherein, in response to manual actuation of said data transmission switch, one of said produced symbol character data strings automatically is selected, and automatically transmitted by said data transmission mechanism to said host system in operable communication with said automatically-activated code symbol reading system.

12. The automatically-activated code symbol reading system of claim 11, wherein said read code symbol is a bar code symbol selected from the group consisting of a 1D bar code symbol, a 2D bar code symbol, and a data matrix type code symbol.

13. The automatically-activated code symbol reading system of claim 11, which further comprises a 2-way RF-based data communication mechanism for transmitting, by way of wireless electromagnetic transmission, the selected one of said symbol character data strings from said data transmission mechanism to a remote base station operably connected to said host system.