Railways – Selective delivery – Electrical control
Patent
1996-10-07
1998-09-15
Morano, S. Joseph
Railways
Selective delivery
Electrical control
104 91, 104 96, 104 99, 1041724, B61B 900
Patent
active
058064346
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to a suspension conveyor and sorting installation.
In operation, the installation according to the invention may be used to sort all such objects which are arranged serially in any irregular order and are to be sorted into a predetermined order or assembled to groups of predetermined order. In a preferred embodiment, the installation according to the invention is designed to automatically sort clothes suspended on coat hangers which, in turn, are suspended on carrier elements driven by conveying means. In this embodiment, identification codes may be attached to the coat hangers or carrier elements and may be detected by sensors, the signals of which are fed to the control unit of the installation. The conveyor paths may in particular be arranged as stoppage or accumulation paths in which the objects can be accumulated by means of stop members while the conveying means continue circulating. This may be achieved, for example, by suspending the carrier elements on a rail and designing the drive connection to the circulating conveying means such that the connection is partly or entirely releasable or remains engaged only in the form of a slight friction.
An installation of the abovementioned type for sorting clothes suspended on coat hangers has already been suggested wherein the unsorted clothes circulate with their coat hangers in the conveyor circuit and are selectively transferred to a second conveyor circuit through an automatically actuable switch. In the second circuit, the transferred clothes are sequentially accumulated in individual groups. However, such a sorting process is still relatively time consuming.
The invention solves the problem of how to design an installation of the abovementioned type such as to enable the sorting of a multiplicity of objects circulating on the conveyor circuit to be carried out in a flexible and comparatively speedy manner.
In accordance with the invention, this object is achieved by suspension conveyor and sorting installation in which a transfer apparatus is provided between the conveyor paths at a distance from their ends, for transferring the objects conveyed along the conveyor paths, from one conveyor path to the other conveyor path. A sorting controller, connected to the transfer mechanism and the stop members, controls the sorting of the conveyed objects such that the objects are sorted while remaining on the conveyor paths. Additional advantageous embodiments are also described.
Thus, according to the invention, the objects are not sorted by transferring them selectively from one conveyor circuit to another conveyor circuit, but by transferring them selectively from one conveyor path to the other conveyor path within the same conveyor circuit. Owing to this arrangement, the sorting process is performed at a high velocity even if a great multiplicity of objects is involved. As the selectivity of the sorting process can be practically increased to any desired degree by providing additional transfer mechanisms between the two conveyor paths and between the ends thereof, the installation according to the invention allows a high sorting efficiency to be achieved. At any of these transfer mechanisms, an object can be selectively taken out of the set of objects being conveyed on one of the conveyor paths and transferred selectively to the other conveyor path, in particular into an interval between other objects or, as the case may be, into a group of objects present on the other conveyor path.
Further, in the installation according to the invention, the conveyor paths are not only suitable for conveying the objects, but they are also designed as stop and storage paths, i.e. provided with stop members in order that the objects can be accumulated in groups on all the path portions, or on predetermined path portions, while the conveying means continue circulating; this is achieved by providing a driving connection between the conveying means and the carrier elements which can be released in a controlled fashion at said path portions, or remains enga
REFERENCES:
patent: 3509826 (1970-05-01), Eliassen
patent: 4051969 (1977-10-01), Homanick
patent: 4106636 (1978-08-01), Ouimet et al.
patent: 4770122 (1988-09-01), Ichihashi et al.
patent: 5111750 (1992-05-01), Nozaki et al.
Enderlein Robby
Geiger Hansjorg
Robu Johann
Morano S. Joseph
MTS Modulare Transport Systeme GmbH
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