The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 24, 2003
Filed:
Jan. 10, 2001
Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha, Nagoya, JP;
Abstract
A multibeam scanner for scanning an image area with a plurality of laser beams, comprising a plurality of beam emitting points that emit a plurality of laser beams reaching the image area with respective time lags therebetween, a time lag determination unit that determines at least one of the time lags during a predetermined calculation time, a scan controller that controls the plurality of beam emitting points to emit the plurality of laser beams successively in the image area with the at least one of the time lags determined by the time lag determination unit. The multibeam scanner of the invention, comprises a photodetector that detects any one of the laser beams at a predetermined beam detection position. The time lag determination unit determines the time lag between the nth laser beam and the n+1th laser beam. Therefore, to scan the image area, the photodetector detects the first laser beam at the predetermined beam detection position, prior to the image area, and determines a scan start time for the first laser beam. Then, the scan controller starts controlling the first beam emitting point at the determined scan start time to emit the first laser beam in the image area. The scan controller further controls the n+1th beam emitting point to emit the nth laser beam in the image area with the calculated time lag between the nth laser beam and the n+1th laser beam.