Patent ID: 8744187

Claim:
An image identification apparatus, comprising: an image pickup unit configured to pickup an image of an identified object; an illumination unit configured to irradiate light towards an image pickup area of the image pickup unit; an illumination control unit configured to change an irradiation condition of the illumination unit in accordance with an image pickup timing of the image pickup unit; and an identification unit configured to identify the identified object according to the image picked-up by the image pickup unit, wherein the illumination unit includes a plurality of light sources, when the illumination control unit turns on all of the light sources and the number of white image pixels contained in an acquired image is greater than a first predetermined value, the illumination control unit is configured to reduce the number of the turned on light sources, when the number of the turned on light sources is reduced and the number of white image pixels contained in an acquired image is greater than a second predetermined value, the illumination control unit is configured to change the turned on light sources in a state that the number of the turned on light sources is reduced, and when the number of white image pixels contained in an acquired image is greater than a third predetermined value in a state that the number of the turned on light sources is reduced and the turned on light sources are changed, the illumination control unit is configured to further reduce the number of the turned on light sources.