Apparatus for controlled transport of articles along a path

An apparatus for controlled motion of discrete tooling along a path, said apparatus comprising:

• a web transporting mechanism that moves a web substrate along a first path at a first velocity in the machine direction, wherein at least a portion of said first path is linear;
• a track that forms a second path for movers, wherein said second path is a closed loop path, wherein at least a portion of said second path for the movers is linear and parallel to the linear portion of the first path for the web substrate;
• a plurality of movers that are configured to transport tooling, wherein said movers are movably mounted on the track for moving along said closed loop second path, said movers comprising a driven member that is oriented to be contacted by at least one drive element at any position along the path;
• a plurality of drive elements arranged along the track, said drive elements each comprising a surface that is oriented to contact the driven member of said movers, wherein said drive elements are configured to sequentially engage the driven member of said movers to provide controlled motion of said movers independently around said track, wherein the drive elements are each driven by a rotary motor;
• and
• a programmable computer control system in communication with the rotary motors for controlling the motion of the rotary motors,
• wherein during a portion of the parallel linear portions of said first and second paths, the apparatus is configured so that the movers transporting tooling are driven at a matched tangential velocity with the web substrate resulting in a dwell time zone where the tooling and a localized region of the web substrate are in close proximity, and
• wherein during the dwell time zone, the apparatus is configured so that the tooling can transform or interface with the web substrate.

An apparatus for controlled transport of articles along a path comprising:

• a plurality of articles;
• a track that forms a closed loop path for movers;
• a plurality of movers that are configured to transport articles, said movers being movably mounted on the track for moving along said closed loop path, said movers comprising a driven member that is oriented to be contacted by at least one drive element at any position along the path;
• a plurality of drive elements arranged along the track, said drive elements each comprising a surface that is oriented to contact the driven member of said movers, wherein said drive elements are configured to sequentially engage the driven member of said movers to provide controlled motion of said movers independently around said track, wherein the drive elements are each driven by a rotary motor;
• and
• a programmable computer control system in communication with the rotary motors for controlling the motion of the rotary motors,
• wherein multiple assembly zones are arranged along the path of the movers allowing for combining multiple components of an assembly, and
• wherein at least one of the multiple assembly zones include at least one indexing motion and at least one constant motion portion along the path.

An apparatus for controlled transport of articles along a path comprising:

• a plurality of articles;
• a track that forms a closed loop path for movers;
• a plurality of movers that are configured to transport articles, said movers being movably mounted on the track for moving along said closed loop path, said movers comprising a driven member that is oriented to be contacted by at least one drive element at any position along the path;
• a plurality of drive elements arranged along the track, said drive elements each comprising a surface that is oriented to contact the driven member of said movers, wherein said drive elements are configured to sequentially engage the driven member of said movers to provide controlled motion of said movers independently around said track, wherein the drive elements are each driven by a rotary motor;
• and
• a programmable computer control system in communication with the rotary motors for controlling the motion of the rotary motors,
• wherein at least one mover can follow an indexing motion for at least a portion of the path, wherein said indexing motion includes a period for dwell and a period for motion, and wherein the indexing motion of one or more movers transporting articles can be adjusted to provide a variable count of articles to another downstream apparatus.