Abstract: A document feeder includes advance, separation, and transport rollers for driving checks in turn along a feedpath from an input tray containing a stack of the checks A sensor is disposed between the separation and transport rollers for detecting presence of the checks therebetween. A controller is joined to the rollers for controlling speed thereof, and is operatively joined to the sensor for measuring intercheck gaps between the separation and transport rollers. The controller actively adjusts the intercheck gaps by temporarily changing speed of the separation roller at the beginning of the feedpath near the input tray. The intercheck gaps are measured and corrected between the separation and transport rollers for precise control thereof while maximizing throughput.

Abstract: A document feeder includes advance, separation, and transport rollers for driving checks in turn along a feedpath from an input tray containing a stack of the checks A sensor is disposed between the separation and transport rollers for detecting presence of the checks therebetween. A controller is joined to the rollers for controlling speed thereof, and is operatively joined to the sensor for measuring intercheck gaps between the separation and transport rollers. The controller actively adjusts the intercheck gaps by temporarily changing speed of the separation roller at the beginning of the feedpath near the input tray. The intercheck gaps are measured and corrected between the separation and transport rollers for precise control thereof while maximizing throughput.

Abstract: A plurality of vertically aligned sensing members scan a matrix type bar code on a document. During the scanning of the bar code, the time period between the detection of succeeding bars is determined. An average time period which occurs during the detection of a number of bars is then generated. Each succeeding time period generated as a result of detecting the next bar is divided by the average time period to determine the presence or absence of the bar in addition to the number of spaces preceding the detected bar. This information is used in decoding the bar code label.