Optical indicia reading terminal with color image sensor

• US 9,262,660 B2
• Filed: 11/07/2011
• Issued: 02/16/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 11/07/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hand Held Products Incorporated (Honeywell International Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Honeywell Scanning & Mobility (Honeywell International Inc.)
• Inventors: Lu, Jun, Liu, Yong, Wang, Ynjiun Paul
• Primary Examiner(s): FRANKLIN, JAMARA ALZAIDA
• Application Number:
  US14/355,613
• Publication Number:
  US 20140284384A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,562 Days
• Field of Search: 23546201-46249
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10722 Photodetector array or CCD scanning

Abstract

An optical indicia reading terminal can comprise a microprocessor, a memory, and an image sensor integrated circuit for decoding decodable indicia. The image sensor integrated circuit can be configured to output a plurality of digital signals, each digital signal being representative of light incident on at least one pixel of the two-dimensional image sensor. The optical indicia reading terminal can be configured to selectively acquire a plurality of luminance signals from the plurality of digital signals. Whether the output image data from the sensor is digitally stored as YUV data or YC_BC_R data, the terminal parses out the luminance signal, Y, in the data matrix to store a monochrome image for decoding. The optical indicia reading terminal can be configured to process the frame of image data for decoding decodable indicia.

Claims

1. An optical indicia reading terminal comprising:

a microprocessor;

a memory communicatively coupled to said microprocessor;

an image sensor integrated circuit communicatively coupled to said memory, said image sensor integrated circuit including a two-dimensional color image sensor including a plurality of pixels;

a housing encapsulating said two-dimensional color image sensor;

wherein said image sensor integrated circuit is configured to output a plurality of digital signals, each digital signal of said plurality of digital signals being representative of light incident on at least one pixel of said plurality of pixels;

wherein said optical indicia reading terminal is configured to store in said memory a frame of monochrome image data by selectively acquiring a plurality of luminance signals from said plurality of digital signals, each luminance signal of said plurality of luminance signals being representative of a luminance of light incident on at least one pixel of said plurality of pixels; and

wherein said optical indicia reading terminal is configured to decode said frame of monochrome image data.

2. The optical indicia reading terminal of claim 1, wherein said plurality of digital signals is provided by a plurality of YUV signals.

3. The optical indicia reading terminal of claim 1, wherein said plurality of digital signals is provided by a plurality of YC_BC_R signals.

4. The optical indicia reading terminal of claim 1, wherein said optical indicia reading terminal is configured to acquire said plurality of luminance signals by reading said plurality of digital signals and discarding chrominance signals.

5. The optical indicia reading terminal of claim 1, wherein said optical indicia reading terminal further comprises a direct memory access (DMA) controller, said DMA controller configured to acquire said plurality of luminance signals from said plurality of digital signals.

6. The optical indicia reading terminal of claim 1, wherein said optical indicia reading terminal further comprises a direct memory access (DMA) controller, said DMA controller configured to acquire said plurality of luminance signals from said plurality of digital signals by performing at least one one-dimensional DMA transfer.

7. The optical indicia reading terminal of claim 1, wherein said optical indicia reading terminal further comprises a direct memory access (DMA) controller, said DMA controller configured to acquire said plurality of luminance signals from said plurality of digital signals by performing at least one two-dimensional DMA transfer.

8. The optical indicia reading terminal of claim 1 further comprising an imaging lens configured to focus an image of a target decodable indicia onto said two-dimensional image sensor.

9. The optical indicia reading terminal of claim 1 further including a trigger for activating said image sensor integrating circuit.

10. The optical indicia reading terminal of claim 1, wherein said image sensor integrated circuit further comprises at least one of:

an amplifier, an analog-to-digital converter, and a control circuit.

11. The optical indicia reading terminal of claim 1, wherein said color image sensor comprises a multiple pixel image sensor array having pixels arranged in rows and columns, a column circuitry, and a row circuitry.

12. The optical indicia reading terminal of claim 1, wherein said color image sensor comprises a multiple pixel image sensor array having pixels arranged in rows and columns, said image sensor array provided by one of:

a charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensor, and

a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor.

13. An optical indicia reading terminal comprising:

a microprocessor;

a source memory communicatively coupled to said microprocessor;

an image sensor integrated circuit communicatively coupled to said source memory, said image sensor integrated circuit including a two-dimensional color image sensor including a plurality of pixels;

a direct memory access (DMA) controller receiving image data from said source memory, said image data comprising independent luminance data and chrominance data;

wherein said direct memory access controller selectively acquires a plurality of luminance signals from said image data.

14. An optical indicia reading terminal according to claim 13, further comprising a destination memory buffer in electronic communication with said direct memory access controller, wherein said direct memory access controller transmits luminance components of said image data to said destination memory buffer.

15. An optical indicia reading terminal according to claim 13, wherein said direct memory access controller is configured to operate according to a de-interleaving DMA transfer of luminance data from said source memory to said destination memory buffer.

16. An optical indicia reading terminal according to claim 13, further comprising separate memory buffers for chrominance data and luminance data.

17. A method of retrieving image data from a source memory in an indicia reading terminal, comprising:

storing software on the terminal to configure a direct memory access controller installed on the terminal;

operating the direct memory access controller with the software to extract either luminance or chrominance data from the image data independently of each other; and

storing the luminance or chrominance data in a destination memory buffer.

18. A method according to claim 17, further comprising the step of programming the software such that the direct memory access controller retrieves image data from selected addresses in a source memory storing the image data.

19. A method according to claim 17, further comprising the step of programming the software such that the direct memory access controller extracts luminance or chrominance data by skipping select memory positions in a source memory storing the image data.

20. A method according to claim 17, further comprising programming the software to extract an intensity value, Y′

from the image data.