Functioning of Barcode Scanners and their Types
Barcodes are machine-readable data codes that serve a broad range of industrial financial functions. Barcodes are widely used in manufacturing, retail, banking, postal, warehousing and various other industries for managing product inventory. Each barcode is to be read by barcode scanner for performing their function. Barcode Scanner is a computer peripheral for reading barcodes printed on various surfaces. A barcode reader consists of a scanner, a decoder and a cable used to connect the reader with a computer.
There are many type of barcode reader available in the market for reading barcode images to perform one or the other work in small to large scale industries. Types of barcode Scanners:
Pen Type Reader: Pen type readers consist of a light source and a photo diode that are placed next to each other in the tip of a pen or wand. To read a barcode, you drag the tip of the pen across all the bars in a steady even motion. The photo diode measures the intensity of the light reflected back from the light source and generates a waveform that is used to measure the widths of the bars and spaces in the barcode. Dark bars in the barcode absorb light and white spaces reflect light so that the voltage waveform generated by the photo diode is an exact duplicate of the bar and space pattern in the barcode. This waveform is then decoded by the Scanner for generating the barcode value.
Laser Readers: Laser scanners work the same way as pen type readers except that they use a laser beam as the light source and typically employ either a reciprocating mirror or a rotating prism to scan the laser beam back and forth across the barcode. A photo diode is used to measure the intensity of the light reflected back from the barcode. The light emitted by the reader is tuned to a specific frequency and the photo diode is designed to detect only this same frequency light.
CCD/LED Readers: CCD readers use an array of hundreds of tiny light sensors lined up in a row in the head of the reader. The important difference between a CCD reader and a pen or laser scanner is that the CCD reader is measuring emitted ambient light from the barcode whereas pen or laser scanners are measuring reflected light of a specific frequency originating from the scanner itself.
Camera-Based Readers: 2D imaging scanners are the fourth and newest type of bar code reader currently available. They use a small video camera to capture an image of a bar code. The reader then uses sophisticated digital image processing techniques to decode the bar code. Video cameras use the same CCD technology as in a CCD barcode reader except that instead of having a single row of sensors, a video camera has hundreds of rows of sensors arranged in a two dimensional array so that they can generate an image.
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