Patent ID: 8752821

Claim:
An image forming apparatus, comprising: an image forming device to form an image on a surface of a sheet; and a sheet feeding unit to feed the sheet to the image forming device, the sheet feeding unit including: an endless, dielectric belt disposed facing an upper surface of a sheet stack including an uppermost sheet of multiple sheets to contact and attract the uppermost sheet to a surface thereof and feed in a sheet feeding direction as the dielectric belt rotates; and an electric potential pattern forming unit to form an electric potential pattern having multiple potential holding sections disposed at a uniform pitch on the surface of the dielectric belt, the multiple potential holding sections disposed adjacent to each other having opposite polarities of positive potential holding sections and negative potential holding sections along the sheet feeding direction, and having identical absolute values of the positive potential holding sections and the negative potential holding sections, wherein a sum of areas of the positive potential holding sections and a sum of areas of the negative potential holding sections in a range where the belt faces the uppermost sheet respectively are unchanging or remain constant even when the belt rotates, so as to retain a length of the potential holding sections in the sheet feeding or conveyance direction, and wherein the range corresponds to an entire flat portion of a lower flat portion of the belt disposed facing the uppermost sheet.