Tiered control architecture for material handling

Details Tiered control architecture for material handling Tiered control architecture for material handling

2007-09-27

2009-08-04

Crawford, Gene (Department: 3651)

Conveyors: power-driven

Conveyor arrangement for selecting among plural sources or...

By loading or unloading section at selected one of a...

C198S741000, C198S718000

Reexamination Certificate

active

07568572

ABSTRACT:
A control architecture for material handling includes multiple tiers of controllers, such as three. The lowest-level controllers interact directly with sensors and actuators used in the material handling system, such as photo-eyes and motors used with conveyors. The lowest-level controllers receive higher level commands from one or more mid-level controllers. The mid-level controllers, in turn, receive still higher level commands and information from at least one upper level controller. Each mid and low level controller is designed to include sufficient intelligence to deal with many of the signals and messages it receives without having to forward those signals or messages to the next higher level controller and await instructions from that higher level controller. The system thus distributes intelligence amongst the controllers. The system is well-adapted for application to conveyor control systems.

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