Patent ID: 7070179

Claim:
A system for feeding and transporting documents, each document having a leading edge and a trailing edge, the system comprising: a feeder stage including a feeder and a separator wherein the feeder acts with the separator to feed documents singly, in order, from a stack of documents; a transport stage downstream of the feeder stage for receiving the fed documents; a pressurized air source; an air flow guide directed toward a fixed location upstream of the feeder at the stack of documents, the air flow guide defining a hollow cavity for accommodating air flow, having an air inlet connected to the pressurized air source, and having an air outlet directed toward the stack of documents such that a document trailing edge passing the fixed location causes a disruption in the air flow through the hollow cavity; and a sensor producing a signal indicative of the air flow disruption to indicate detection of the document trailing edge at the fixed location wherein the sensor is located to sense the air flow disruption through the hollow cavity while the document is still being fed from the document stack.