International Business Machines Corporation

Bina M Hallman

Rodney Gene Moon

Ravi Prakash

John R Hillery

Christine A Fellows

A system which provides a continuous indication of the operating integrity, of an entire image capture and processing system without the need for interfering with document throughput or the need for special paper test documents to be inserted into the scanning path. The system monitors performance from document presentation and scanner output, through image processing. It schedules maintenance of the system on an actual as needed basis. It continuously collects and monitors the imaging characteristics from work documents being processed and calculates a projected date at which maintenance will be required in order to retain system operating integrity. Minimum and maximum video values are collected from the output of each picture element sensor for each document. A running indication of system integrity is stored in a white trend array and a black trend array. These arrays are adjusted after an interval of time or one or more documents have been processed. The change in value of a trend array element depends upon whether the change indicated by the processing of the previous document indicates a deterioration of performance or a return to acceptable performance by the image capture system. After a further interval, the arrays are shifted in parallel to develop a maximum trend and a minimum trend for each picture element.

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Charlotte, NC, United States of America

Bina M Hallman