Patent ID: 7878407

Claim:
A POS-based digital image capturing and processing system illuminating objects using automatic object detection and spectral-mixing based illumination techniques, said POS-based digital image capturing and processing system comprising: a system housing installable at a POS station, and having an imaging window; an area-type illumination and imaging station disposed within said system housing, for projecting a coextensive area-type illumination and imaging field through said imaging window into a 3D imaging volume during object illumination and imaging operations; wherein said area-type illumination and imaging station includes (i) an image formation and detection (IFD) subsystem having an area-type image sensing array and optics providing a field of view (FOV) on said area-type image sensing array and extending into said 3D imaging volume; (ii) a spectral-mixing based illumination subsystem producing a first field of visible illumination from an array of visible light emitting diodes (LEDs), and producing a second field of invisible illumination from an array of infrared (IR) LEDs; wherein said first and second fields of illumination spatially overlap and intermix with each other to produce a composite spectrally-mixed illumination beam that is substantially coextensive with said FOV; (iii) an illumination control subsystem for controlling the relative power ratio of visible illumination and invisible illumination (VIS/IR) during system operation; and (iv) an image capturing and buffering subsystem for capturing and buffering digital images of the illuminated object detected by said area-type image sensing array; a digital image processing subsystem for automatically processing said buffered digital images so as to read one or more 1D and/or 2D code symbols graphically represented in said digital images; an automatic object motion detection subsystem for automatically detecting the motion of an object moving through said 3D imaging volume, and generating signals indicative of said detected object motion; and a control subsystem, responsive to said signals generated by said automatic object motion detection subsystem, for controlling and/or orchestrating the operations of the subsystems within said area-type illumination and imaging station.