EP0300481A2
Expired / Lapsed
EP
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Apparatus for detecting inclination of optical card
Assignee: Omron Corp
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Filing: 1988-07-21
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Granted: —
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Expires: 2008-07-21
Abstract
Abstract There is provided an optical card inclination detecting apparatus (100) comprising: a card holder (2) supported to a guiding mechanism (12) so as to be reciprocated and having a card holding portion (21); an optical head (6) which has a tracking function for allowing the optical head to follow recording tracks on the optical card and performs at least either one of recording and reproduction of information onto/from the optical card; and a detector (104 ∼ 109) to detect an angle of inclination of the optical card held by the card holder to a moving direction of the card holder on the basis of an amount of change of a tracking signal which is used in the tracking operation of the optical head in at least a one-directional movement of the card holder supporting the optical card. A photo detector (121) to detect the reflected light from an optical card comprises two light receiving portions (121a, 121b) having the same special shape such as isosceles triangle or right-angled triangle. These light receiving portions are arranged so as to confront vertexes of the isosceles triangles or to confront oblique sides of the right-angled triangles. With this structure, the dynamic range of the track error signal can be set to a large value.
Inventors
- 👤 Kouji Omron Tateisi Electronics Co. Nitto
- 👤 Yoshihito Omron Tateisi Electronics Co. Koshiba
- 👤 Kazuo Omron Tateisi Electronics Co. Tsuboi
- 👤 Keiichi Omron Tateisi Electronics Co. Tsutsui
- 👤 Koji Omron Tateisi Electronics Co. Sogo
Bibliographic Details
Application Number
—
Jurisdiction
EP
Data Source
google_patents
Last Synchronized
2026-11-09 13:29
CPC Classifications
G; G11; G11B; G11B19/00; G11B19/02; G11B19/12; G06; G06K; G06K7/00; G06K7/01; G06K7/015; G11B17/00; G11B17/34; G11B19/10; G11B7/00; G11B7/002; G11B7/0033; G11B7/08; G11B7/09; G11B7/0901
Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 16
Claim 1
Independent Claim
148 words
An optical card inclination detecting apparatus (100) comprising: a card holder (2) which is supported to a guiding mechanism (12) so as to be reciprocated and has a card holding portion (21); an optical head (6) which has a tracking function for allowing the optical head to follow recording/recorded tracks (17) on an optical card (1) and which performs at least either one of writing and reading of information onto/from the optical card while the card holder supporting the optical card in the card holding portion is moving; and means (104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109) for detecting an angle of inclination of the optical card held by said card holder to a moving direction of the card holder on the basis of a change amount of a tracking signal used in a tracking operation of the optical head in at least one-directional movement of the card holder.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
148 words
An optical card inclination detecting apparatus (100) comprising: a card holder (2) which is supported to a guiding mechanism (12) so as to be reciprocated and has a card holding portion (21); an optical head (6) which has a tracking function for allowing the optical head to follow recording/recorded tracks (17) on an optical card (1) and which performs at least either one of writing and reading of information onto/from the optical card while the card holder supporting the optical card in the card holding portion is moving; and means (104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109) for detecting an angle of inclination of the optical card held by said card holder to a moving direction of the card holder on the basis of a change amount of a tracking signal used in a tracking operation of the optical head in at least one-directional movement of the card holder.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
32 words
An apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said inclination angle detecting means has means (104) for differentiating the tracking signal and detects the inclination angle on the basis of this differentiated value.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
108 words
An apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said inclination angle detecting means has: a card sensor (105, 106) for detecting a passage of the optical card at two points which are away from each other by a predetermined distance; means (107, 108) for sampling a value represented by the tracking signal in response to a signal representative of the passage of the optical card at each point which is generared from said card sensor; and differentiating means (109) for calculating a difference between the values sampled with respect to said two points and for outputting a signal indicative of the inclination angle on the basis of this difference.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
20 words
An apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said inclination angle detecting means has means (115) for detecting the tracking signal.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
160 words
An optical card inclination angle detecting apparatus (100) in an optical card processing apparatus in which an optical card (1) having a plurality of track guides (18) which are respectively formed along a plurality of information recording tracks (17) is relatively moved to an optical head (6) and said optical head is allowed to follow said information recording tracks by a tracking servo mechanism, thereby writing or reading information, comprising: means (111, 111A, 111B), when the optical head is relatively moved for the optical card without making said tracking servo mechanism operative, for generating an output signal which is changed every time the optical head crosses the track guides; means (118) for shaping a waveform of the output signal and producing pulses corresponding to an angle of inclination of the optical card; and means (119) for counting said pulses indicative of the inclination of the optical card and converting the count value into the inclination angle of the optical card.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
160 words
An optical card inclination angle detecting apparatus (100) in an optical card processing apparatus in which an optical card (1) having a plurality of track guides (18) which are respectively formed along a plurality of information recording tracks (17) is relatively moved to an optical head (6) and said optical head is allowed to follow said information recording tracks by a tracking servo mechanism, thereby writing or reading information, comprising: means (111, 111A, 111B), when the optical head is relatively moved for the optical card without making said tracking servo mechanism operative, for generating an output signal which is changed every time the optical head crosses the track guides; means (118) for shaping a waveform of the output signal and producing pulses corresponding to an angle of inclination of the optical card; and means (119) for counting said pulses indicative of the inclination of the optical card and converting the count value into the inclination angle of the optical card.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
27 words
An apparatus according to claim 5, having a card holder (2) to hold the optical card and a card transfer mechanism (5) for reciprocating said card holder.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim
33 words
An apparatus according to claim 5, wherein said means for generating the output signal comprises at least two photo diodes to detect a tracking error signal which are attached for the optical head.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
53 words
An apparatus according to claim 6, wherein said means for producing the pulses indicative of the inclination of the optical card produces both of the pulses indicative of the inclination of the optical card and an inclination direction signal having a binary value in accordance with the inclination direction of the optical card.
Claim 11
Dependent Claim
95 words
An apparatus according to claim 5, wherein said means for counting the pulses indicative of the inclination of the optical card receives outputs of a pair of card detecting sensors (105, 106) arranged so as to be away from each other by a predetermined distance in a carrying direction of the optical card and starts to count the pulses indicative of the inclination of the optical card in response to the output of one of said card detecting sensors and stops the counting operation in response to the output of the other card detecting sensor.
Claim 12
Dependent Claim
129 words
A tracking error detecting apparatus in which a light beam is irradiated onto an optical card (1) having track guides (18) and a tracking error is detected on the basis of the reflected light from said optical card, comprising: a photo detector (121) having at least two light receiving portions (121a, 121b) to detect the reflected light from the optical card; and an optical system for converging the reflected light from the optical card onto said photo detector and forming an image, wherein said photo detector is constructed in a manner such that at least one side of an outer shape of each of the light receiving portions is set obliquely with respect to a longitudinal direction of the track guides whose image is formed onto the photo detector.
Claim 13
Dependent Claim
129 words
A tracking error detecting apparatus in which a light beam is irradiated onto an optical card (1) having track guides (18) and a tracking error is detected on the basis of the reflected light from said optical card, comprising: a photo detector (121) having at least two light receiving portions (121a, 121b) to detect the reflected light from the optical card; and an optical system for converging the reflected light from the optical card onto said photo detector and forming an image, wherein said photo detector is constructed in a manner such that at least one side of an outer shape of each of the light receiving portions is set obliquely with respect to a longitudinal direction of the track guides whose image is formed onto the photo detector.
Claim 14
Dependent Claim
21 words
An apparatus according to claim 10, wherein each of the light receiving portions of said photo detector comprises a photo diode.
Claim 15
Dependent Claim
37 words
An apparatus according to claim 10, wherein said photo detector has two light receiving portions each having an isosceles triangular shape and these light receiving portions are arranged so as to confront vertexes of the isosceles triangles.
Claim 16
Dependent Claim
38 words
An apparatus according to claim 10, wherein said photo detector has two light receiving portions each having a right-angled triangular shape and these light receiving portions are arranged so as to confront oblique sides of the right-angled triangles.
References Cited (Backward Citations)
No citation records indexed.
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