Patent ID: 6330095
Filing Date: 2001-12-11
Classification: G01S,G02B,G12B

Abstract:
A beam scanning apparatus for scanning a target region through use of an optical beam, comprising:a light source emitting light;a collimator lens transforming the light emitted from the light source into a parallel optical beam;a drive mechanism for directly moving the collimator lens along a predetermined travel path reciprocally while the primary optical axis of the light emitted from the light source and the optical axis of the collimator lens are placed in a single plane in order to sweep the optical beam over the target region; anda stopper mechanism for limiting the movement of the collimator lens to mitigate load imposed on the drive mechanism for reversing the direction of movement of the collimator lens, the stopper mechanism provided at at least one of the points where the direction of reciprocal movement of the collimator lens is switched from one to the other.