Patent ID: 7905484

Claim:
A sheet feeding apparatus comprising: a stacking tray adapted to stack sheets; a sheet feeding member adapted to feed the sheets incoming from said stacking tray into a conveying pass; a separating member adapted to be disposed opposite to said sheet feeding member across said conveying pass and separate the sheets fed to said conveying pass by said sheet feeding member one by one; a double feed detection sensor adapted to generate an output for detecting double feed of sheets fed to said conveying pass; a rotatable member adapted to be disposed at a position that is substantially the same as or adjacent to said sheet feeding member in a sheet feeding direction and contact the fed sheet; a driving unit adapted to rotationally drive said rotatable member in a rotational direction for reverse feeding of sheets; and a control unit adapted to control said driving unit such that at least said rotatable member is rotationally driven in said rotational direction for reverse feeding of sheets when the double feed of sheets is detected based on the output of said double feed detection sensor, wherein said rotatable member is disposed so as to be movable to a position contacting the sheet fed to said conveying pass and a position separated from the sheet.