Method for sorting pieces of luggage and luggage sorting system
AssigneeSiemens Logistics LLC
InventorsGisbert Berger, Svetlozar Delianski, Ulrich Dengler, Joerg Rottland
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Pieces of luggage are sorted which each carries an identification element with a set of information in the form of plaintext. In order to sort pieces of luggage efficiently, at least a portion of the set of information on the identification element is detected automatically and recognized automatically. During an examination, it is automatically verified whether the recognized portion of the set of information matches at least one set of data stored in a database.
Claims18
A method of sorting pieces of luggage, the method comprising:
- generating for each piece of luggage an information set including a machine-readable code and human-readable code, and storing the information set as a dataset in a database;
- providing each piece of luggage with an identification element carrying the information set with the machine-readable code and human-readable code;
- during a sorting process, automatically acquiring and automatically recognizing at least part of the information set in the identification element by acquiring the machine-readable code and, if the machine readable code is not recognizable, automatically acquiring the human-readable code from the identification element;
- performing a check to thereby automatically verify whether the part of the information set that has been recognized matches at least one dataset that is stored in the database;
- and
- sorting the respective piece of luggage according to information gleaned from the dataset that is stored in the database.
A luggage sorting system, wherein each piece of luggage includes an identification element with an information set in the form of machine-readable code and human-readable code, comprising:
- a database having stored therein a dataset for each piece of luggage, the dataset containing the machine-readable code and human-readable code of the information set;
- an information acquisition apparatus for automatically acquiring the information set in the form of human-readable code from the identification element and subjecting the human-readable code to optical character recognition if the machine-readable code is not recognizable;
- and
- a checking unit configured to access the database in which the dataset with the machine-readable code and human-readable code is stored and to automatically verify, during a check, whether a part of the information set that has been recognized matches at least one dataset that is stored in the database.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.