Patent ID: 6029969
Filing Date: 2000-02-29
Classification: G03G,Y10S

Abstract:
An automatic document feeding device for automatically feeding one or more documents, each having a size, one by one to an image scanning position having one end serving as a scanning reference point of an image processing device, said automatic document feeding device comprising:a document supply mechanism having a document supply tray on which the documents to be imaged are stacked, a supply passage through which the documents are sent one by one to said image scanning position, and a document sensor disposed on said supply passage to detect the document traveling through said supply passage and measure the length of the document;a document transport unit driven by a reversible transporting motor so as to selectively move the document fed from said document supply mechanism in a forward direction or reverse direction along said image scanning position and place the document in position at said scanning reference point;a document discharge mechanism including a discharge tray a delivery passage connected with said image scanning position at a bifurcation point so as to send out the document from said image scanning position, a return passage having one end connected with said delivery passage and the other end connected with said bifurcation point so as to turn over the document from said image scanning position, and a discharge passage connected with said delivery passage so as to discharge the document from said image scanning position, thereby to selectively introduce the document from said image scanning position into said return passage to turn over said document or said discharge passage to discharge said document;means for controlling said document transport unit and said document discharge mechanism so as to forward the document to said document discharge mechanism upon sending back the document turned over through said return passage to said image scanning position; anda discharge sensor disposed on said delivery passage of said discharge mechanism to detect the document, whereby the document is sent in the reverse direction until the document arrives at said bifurcation point after passing through said discharge sensor, and reversed to be sent in the forward direction when the document arrives at said bifurcation point.