Researchers develop world's fastest bar code reader

Description

Building on a series of recent breakthroughs in ultrafast analog-to-digital conversion, UCLA engineers have designed a bar code reader that is nearly a thousand times faster than any device currently in use.

The new technology, dubbed the CWEETS Scanner (chirped wavelength electronic encoded time domain sampling), first maps the one-dimensional bar code image onto the spectrum of an ultrashort laser pulse and then maps that into an amplitude-modulated waveform that is captured with a single optical-to-electrical converter. This is in stark contrast to typical camera-based bar code readers, which require many optical-to-electrical converters — in other words, an array of pixels — to capture the image. The new imager requires only a single pixel and is free of mechanically moving parts.

Dispersive Fourier transformation was originally developed by the UCLA team for ultrafast spectroscopy and has been used to demonstrate real-time spectroscopy with nanosecond time resolution.

The development of a bar code reader using this technology was motivated by the fact that the volume of information in bar codes is increasing and they are becoming integrated into real-time sensor networks. Similarly, there is a need for high-speed scanners for non-contact position and displacement sensing, as used in real-time inspection and monitoring in industrial applications.

The new UCLA scanner also achieves high sensitivity by amplifying the laser beam that is reflected by the bar code while the signal is still in the optical domain.

"Eliminating the CCD camera and the mechanically steered mirrors from bar code scanners can prove valuable in applications that demand high-throughput bar code reading, such as industrial monitoring and retail supply line management," said Jalali, the principal investigator on the research. "The next step is to see whether the new scanner can be produced in a cost-effective manner."

Original URL

http://www.physorg.com/news142008610.html

http://www.physorg.com/news142008610.html