Product Surface Optoelectronic Code via Surface Profile
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing optoelectronically readable codes on products, such as bar codes and QR codes, face challenges with legibility and cost due to the need for additional layers or materials that can be affected by stress, heat, and solar radiation, making them complex and expensive to produce and maintain.
Innovation Solution
The solution involves creating a product surface with optoelectronically readable codes where the cell types differ in surface profiles, specifically through elevations and depressions, rather than color or material, allowing for robust readability under stress and eliminating the need for additional layers, with surface profiles designed to maximize intensity differences detectable by optoelectronic readers across various illumination directions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If additional colored layers are applied to the product surface to create optoelectronically readable codes, then the code legibility is improved, but the device complexity and manufacturing cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The code structure is merged with the product surface geometry itself. The cells are formed by varying the surface profile (elevations and depressions) rather than applying separate colored layers. This integration eliminates the need for additional material layers and simplifies the manufacturing process while maintaining code legibility through optoelectronic detection of surface variations.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention changes the parameter used to differentiate code cells from color to surface profile geometry (elevations vs. depressions). This parameter change allows the code to be read optoelectronically through light reflection differences caused by geometric variations, eliminating the need for colored inks or paints and reducing manufacturing complexity.
2Reliability
If additional colored layers are applied to each individual product, then the code can be created, but the productivity decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The code formation process is merged with the existing product manufacturing process. For tire production, the code is created during the vulcanization process itself through differential curing of the rubber material, eliminating the need for separate code application steps. This integration maintains code creation capability while significantly improving production efficiency.
3Reliability
If additional colored layers are applied to the product surface, then the code can be formed, but the manufacturing cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The code formation is merged with the base product manufacturing process. The same vulcanization process used to cure the tire rubber is also used to create the code cells by controlling the curing pattern. This eliminates the need for separate code application materials (inks, paints) and processes, reducing manufacturing costs while ensuring code formation.
Solution Approach 2:
The product material itself (rubber) serves dual purposes: as the base material for the product and as the medium for creating the code. The rubber's ability to cure differentially allows it to self-form the code structure during normal processing, eliminating the need for external code application materials and reducing manufacturing costs.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach results in a cost-effective, stress-resistant, and legible optoelectronically readable code with a large detectable area, enhancing the product's overall impression and eliminating the need for additional layers, ensuring robustness during production and use.
Implementation Method 1
The intensity difference is based on cells of different cell types with the same geometric dimensions. The intensity difference ΔIc can be detected by an optoelectronic reader. The two cell types of each of the two codes differ in the intensity of the light reflected from their surface profiles due to the different reflective properties of these cell types.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2~3
Figure 4
AI summary
The invention relates to a product surface (1) comprising a first optoelectronically readable code (5), which is formed by an arrangement of planar cells (6) of a first cell type and planar cells (7) of a second cell type. It is an object of the invention for the code to have a large detectable region and the readability thereof to be robust in relation to demands during the production and/or the use of the product surface (1). The object is achieved by virtue of the cells (6, 7), as integral components of the product surface (1), having a surface profile (3), by virtue of an intensity difference ∆I = I2 – I1 in the intensity I2 reflected by the surface profile (3) of the second cell type and the intensity I1 reflected by the surface profile (3) of the first cell type emerging in the case of light incidence as a result of the embodiment of the 15 surface profiles (3), by virtue of the product surface (1) having a second code (51) embodied thus and by virtue of the maximum of the absolute intensity difference |∆I1| of the first code (5) lying in a different reflection direction than the maximum of the absolute intensity difference |∆I2| of the second code (51).