Patent ID: 8655203

Claim:
A toner supply control system for an image forming apparatus, the image forming apparatus including: a latent image carrier; a latent image forming device to form a latent image on the latent image carrier; and a development device to develop the latent image formed on the latent image carrier using a developing agent, the development device including: a developing agent transporting device to transport the developing agent along a developing agent circulation route; a developing agent carrying device to carry the developing agent, circulating in the developing agent circulation route, on a surface of the developing agent carrying device, and to transport the developing agent to a development area facing the latent image carrier, and to return the developing agent passing the development area to the developing agent circulation route again; and a toner supply device to supply toner to the developing agent circulating in the developing agent circulation route from a toner supply area set at a given position of the developing agent circulation route by driving a toner supply member using a drive force of a drive source, the toner supply control system to control a toner supply for the development device comprising: a toner concentration detector, disposed at a position downstream in a transporting direction of the developing agent with respect to the toner supply area where the toner supply device supplies toner to the developing agent to detect toner concentration of the developing agent; and a supply controller to compute and adjust a toner supply amount value required for a toner supply operation to cancel a toner concentration fluctuation in the developing agent, the supply controller including: an image-information-based consumption prediction unit to predict toner consumption amount based on image information used for forming an image by the latent image forming device; a toner-concentration-based consumption prediction unit to predict toner consumption amount based on a detection result of the toner concentration detector; and a toner supply determination unit to determine a toner supply timing and a toner supply amount and initiate a toner supply operation based on the toner consumption amount predicted by the toner-concentration-based consumption prediction unit right after the toner consumption occurs, wherein when the developing agent, containing consumed toner corresponding to the image information, comes to the toner supply area of the toner supply device again after the toner consumption occurs, the toner supply determination unit initiates a toner supply operation using a toner supply amount computed by using the toner consumption amount predicted by the image-information-based consumption prediction unit in view of the toner consumption amount predicted by the toner-concentration-based consumption prediction unit.