Material or article handling – With weighing
Patent
1987-01-27
1988-05-24
Paperner, Leslie J.
Material or article handling
With weighing
294 6733, 414 71, 414902, B65G 5706
Patent
active
047462558
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to a machine for transferring objects from a working station to a load receiving structure, such as a pallet.
Many automated machines are on the market for transferring various pieces and objects from production or feed lines to structures for collecting, using or storing them or vice versa.
The loading structures or platforms generally called pallets are also known. Personal computers are also known.
If operated by card-type or "quota by quota" self-learning processors, the above automated machines require long periods of preparation and adjustment to be carried out by experts using special equipment.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the invention to automatically move objects, especially packaged books or other material, from an arrival point of a production line to receiving structures generally, especially onto pallets, or vice versa. It is another object to place such packages in the best or preferred position on said structures.
In keeping with these objects, the machine comprises a grab for picking up or putting down objects. The grab can take up any position in space in relation to the objects and to the loading structures.
All movements made by the grab are controlled by electric motors, by hydraulic cylinders fitted with solenoid valves or other devices operated by an electronic panel served by a computer.
This computer processes input data regarding the size and position of the objects, the loading structure, and the best or preferred positions for the objects in relation to said structure.
The grab moves, translating parallel to itself, in accordance with the Cartesian axes and can rotate around a vertical axis.
In other embodiments the grab moves by making anthropromorphic movements, in other words by movements similar to those made by human limbs.
The most suitable type of computer for the purpose is that known as the personal computer, into which the user types in the required data.
In another kind of execution, suitable sensors are placed in the trajectories made by the objects and loading structures or where they are positioned to provide the computer with details about the sizes and positions of the objects and the structures, from one moment to the next.
It is thus sufficient to type into the computer, at the moment when the grab must work, the data needed to state the best or preferred positions of the objects in relation to the structures, or vice versa.
The grab is fitted with horizontal blades which slide below the object to pick it up, and which slide in the opposite direction to release it.
A pressing device, hydraulically or electro-mechanically operated, is moved downward into contact with the upper surface of the object to stabilize it and can inform the computer of said object's height.
In one kind of execution the grab's horizontal blades lie in a horizontal slit, passing from one side to the other, in a supporting piece placed at the lower extremity of a vertical arm, which allows them to translate axially in both directions across the slit.
In one direction for picking up the object, the blades then move out on the front side of the arm towards the area destined for pick-up and return on the back side, in the opposite direction for releasing the object, the blades return on the front side and emerge on the back side.
Around these blades, lengthwise, there is a ring-shaped sheath of cloth, rubber, plastic and the like, whose ends are applied, above the slit, respectively on the front and back sides of the arm supporting the grab.
The lower part of said sheath is therefore disposed below the blades and below their support.
Therefore, when the blades return from the front side of the arm and project from the back side to allow the object to be put down, they slide along inside the sheath and consequently below that part of the sheath between the blade and the object.
Thus freed from the blades, the object is placed on the unloading surface without any friction between the object and the blades an
REFERENCES:
patent: 3586176 (1971-06-01), Rackman
patent: 3884363 (1975-05-01), Ajlouny
patent: 4242025 (1980-12-01), Thibault
patent: 4273506 (1981-06-01), Thomson et al.
patent: 4383788 (1983-05-01), Sylvander
patent: 4641271 (1987-02-01), Konishi et al.
Robot Case Palletizer/Depalletizer brochure, Model 250, FMC Corporation, Hoopeston, Ill., copyright 1984.
Roccabianca Graziano
Santaca Claudio
Paperner Leslie J.
Striker Michael J.
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