Feeder control system and method
View Patent ↗A feeder control system and method are disclosed. The system includes a feeder information detector, and a feeder information leverager to provide integrity verification, system control and/or reporting. The method includes the steps of detecting feeder information, and leveraging the feeder information to provide integrity verification, system control and/or reporting.
1. A mail inserter control system, comprising:
a high-speed mail inserter including a raceway for conveying a plurality of printed work pieces of a mailing;
a line-scan camera positioned relative to a raceway of the inserter, for detecting information on each of the printed work pieces for the mailing as the printed work pieces move in an uninterrupted manner along the raceway; and
a reader including a processor for reading information from a region of interest (ROI) from an image of at least one of the printed work pieces obtained by the line-scan camera,
wherein the processor is configured for receiving output of the line-scan camera without having to stop the at least one printed work piece during its progression through the raceway, the processor is configured to decode a first line scan of the at least one printed work piece while a next successive second line of the at least one printed work piece is at least concurrently being scanned by the line scan camera, iterating the processing during continuous movement of the at least one printed work piece along the raceway, and performing optical character recognition (OCR) on a plurality of decoded lines,
the processor is configured to provide a user interface, the user interface including a repositionable and resizable control grid, and
the ROI is delineated by positioning the control grid over a representation of the at least one printed work piece on the user interface and associating parameters with the ROI to focus one or more OCR reading processes on a target area of the image of the at least one printed work piece, the target area containing expected information which can be compared against a previously stored expected information derived from an electronic file.
2. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the line-scan camera is placed approximate the beginning of the raceway of the inserter.
3. The system according to claim 1 , further comprising an archiver for archiving an image of the printed work piece obtained from output of the line-scan camera, for later use.
4. The system according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a light-leveler for light-leveling a three-dimensional character captured by the line-scan camera to determine peaks of the three-dimensional character; and
an image converter for converting the three-dimensional character into a two-dimensional character in accordance with the determined peaks.
5. The system according to claim 1 , wherein:
the line-scan camera is configured for capturing light reflected when scanning the printed work piece; and
the control system further comprises a light intensity balancer for changing intensity of the reflected light to balance field of view intensity to pre-process the scan.
6. The system according to claim 5 , further comprising means for performing at least one process selected from the group consisting of brightness flattening, automatic light adjustment, and thresholding, to enhance extraction of information from the scan with known difficulties selected from a group consisting of skewing, black on black printing, watermarks, and write-overs.
7. The system according to claim 1 , wherein blob masking algorithms are used to search for data fields within the ROI.
8. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the ROI and its associated parameters are archived for later re-use.
9. The system according to claim 1 , wherein an archived ROI can be retrieved by detecting a barcode on the printed work piece.
10. The system according to claim 1 , wherein more than one ROI is delineated with respect to target areas of the image of the printed work piece.
11. The system according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a data indexer for matching one element of the printed work piece to another by indexing detected information to determine likelihood of an accurate match in accordance with established probabilities;
wherein the inserter is a Data Driven Inserter (DDI), and a feeder function of the DDI is guided by results from the indexing of detected information.
12. The system according to claim 11 , wherein the processor is configured to use a region of interest (ROI) parameterized to search for and compare information of a target area of the image of the printed work piece that should have a logo present.
13. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the system further comprises a parallel decoder for decoding an image of the printed work piece in parallel with scanning.
14. The system according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a computer implementing a machine control process relative to the inserter; and
an embedded operator interface located on the same computer as the machine control process but in a separate memory area from the machine control process to avoid undesirable interaction.
15. The system according to claim 14 , wherein the interface is a web browser.
16. The system according to claim 14 , wherein the interface is given a lower priority for resources than the machine control process to ensure the machine control process is given highest priority access to system resources.
17. The system according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a single centralized interface to improve operational efficiency by centralizing multiple control points in a single location; and
a closed-loop integrity checker to leverage information gathered from multiple locations throughout the inserter at a single centralized location to maximize productivity and minimize errors.