Patent ID: 7862246

Claim:
A feeding device for feeding an object in response to a command requesting the object to be moved to a desired position, comprising: a feed mechanism including a motor that is to be driven with supply of a power thereto, and a feeder that is to be operated by said motor for feeding the object in a feed direction; a power supply controller operable, upon reception of said command, to supply the power to said motor until an actual operating position of said feeder coincides with a power-supply-stop operating position located before a target operating position of said feeder that causes the object to be positioned in said desired position, and to stop the supply of the power to said motor when said actual operating position coincides with said power-supply-stop operating position, for causing said actual operating position to eventually coincide with said target operating position owing to an inertia of said feed mechanism; and a power-supply-stop operating-position determiner operable to determine said power-supply-stop operating position of said feeder in which the supply of the power to said motor is to be stopped, based on said target operating position of said feeder, wherein said power-supply-stop operating-position determiner determines said power-supply-stop operating position of said feeder based on, in addition to said target operating position, a positional relationship between said target operating position and a most-deviated-velocity operating position of said feeder in which said operating velocity of said feeder is most deviated from a reference value thereof within each one cycle of a cyclic variation of an operating velocity of said feeder, wherein said feeding device further comprises an operation position detector operable to detect said actual operation position of said feeder, and wherein said power supply controller controls the supply of the power to said motor based on said actual operating position of said feeder that is detected by said operating position detector.