Apparatus and method for print quality control

摘要

A method is provided for print quality control. To carry out this method, a printing apparatus with optical detection capability is used. This apparatus includes: advance mechanism for advancing a print medium through a print zone; a carriage assembly having at least one pen for ejecting ink droplets onto the print medium in the print zone; an optical detection unit positioned in the print zone; and a printer controller. The optical detection unit includes an image acquisition module for capturing at least one image of the print zone within a field of view (FOV) and an image processor for performing a pixel array analysis of the captured image. The image analysis is triggered by the printer controller and the result of the analysis is fed back to the printer controller for controlling the printing operation.