Patent involving two-dimensional sensor for monitoring printhead position in inkjet printers assigned to OEM.
Eastman Kodak has been awarded patent number 8,317,292, filed in December 2009, relating to its method of detecting the position of a printhead in an inkjet device relative to the recording medium in the printer using a two-dimensional sensor, as reported on USPTO.
The invention involves “sending a light from a light source toward at least a portion of the roller; receiving reflected light in a two-dimensional sensor mounted on the carriage; sending a signal from the tow-dimensional sensor to a controller, wherein the signal indicates the pattern of reflected light received by the two-dimensional sensor; comparing the received signal by the controller to a signal stored in memory; and calculating a shift between the received signal and the signal stored in memory”.
The result of the invention helps to resolve some of the issues that can arise when printing, as “sources of error can be introduced in the recording medium position after feed roller rotation” such as “feed roller diameter errors, feed roller eccentricity, or recording medium slippage relative to the roller”.
The invention also arose out of a desire to monitor “the position of the carriage and the amount of recording medium advance with fewer sensors” due to the market requiring “functionality at a lower cost”.
The Recycler also recently reported on Kodak being assigned patent number 8,313,181 relating to a method of extracting air from an inkjet printhead using an air extraction chamber.