Conveyor screening during robotic article unloading

A robotic material handling system for unloading articles in an article pile, the robotic material handling system movable across a floor, the robotic material handling system comprising:

• a mobile body;
• a movable robotic manipulator attached to the mobile body and comprising an end effector at an end thereof, the end effector configured to unload one or more articles from the article pile;
• a conveyor system mounted on the mobile body configured to receive the one or more cartons from the end effector and to move the one or more articles towards a rear of the robotic material handling system, the conveyor system comprising:
• (i) a nose conveyor surface and (ii) a rearward conveyor, the nose conveyor having two or more parallel conveyors that are distal to and proximally feed the rearward conveyor that is laterally narrower than the nose conveyor surface;
• an article detection system comprising:
• one or more sensors coupled respectively to one of the mobile body and the movable robotic manipulator to scan the nose conveyor surface;
• a scan processing subsystem in communication with the one or more sensors, the processing subsystem to detect presence and location of any articles based upon a received scan of the nose conveyor surface as compared to a baseline scan;
• and
• a controller in communication with the article detection system, the mobile body, the robotic manipulator, and the conveyor system, the controller:
• causes the mobile body to position the nose conveyor surface proximate to an article pile;
• causes the robotic manipulator to robotically move one or more articles per operation onto the nose conveyor from the article pile;
• receives a scan of the nose conveyor surface from the article detection system to detect respective locations of any articles received on the nose conveyor surface;
• determines whether the respective locations of any scanned articles prevent immediate rearward conveyance by the two or more parallel conveyors at a first speed;
• and
• in response to determining that the respective locations of any scanned articles prevent immediate rearward conveyance, causes at least one of the two or more parallel conveyors to operate at the first speed and at least another one of two or more parallel conveyors to operate at a second speed that is not equal to the first speed.