Patent ID: 8033472

Claim:
A reader for electro-optically reading indicia, comprising: a housing; a plurality of controllable image capture modules at the housing for capturing images of the indicia along different fields of view, each module including an illuminator for illuminating the indicia with illumination light, a solid-state imager with a rolling shutter for sequentially capturing return illumination light from the indicia, and a shutter element controllable between an open state and a closed state; and a controller for preventing interference among the modules by controlling the shutter element of a respective module to assume the open state only during a respective exposure time period during which the illuminator of the respective module illuminates the indicia, and the shutter element allows the return illumination light from the illuminator of the respective module to pass to the imager of the respective module to capture the passed return illumination light and to produce an electrical signal indicative of the image of the indicia being captured, and by controlling the shutter element of the respective module to assume the closed state at all times other than the respective exposure time period to block the return illumination light from the illuminators of the other modules other than the respective module.