Mobile tobacco receiving station
AssigneeAltria Client Services LLC
InventorsHal L. Teegarden, David Scott Ray, John Stewart Livesay, Isidro Gomez
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system, method, computer program product, and mobile receiving station for receiving and processing leaf tobacco at a location of a tobacco farmer, including processing the tobacco leaf at the location, including means for weighing and grading of the received tobacco leaf and, optionally, determining moisture content and transmitting information relating to the optionally determined moisture content, the weight, and the grade of the received tobacco leaf to a tobacco product manufacturing facility over a communications link.
Claims20
A mobile receiving station comprising:
- a loading ramp configured to load at least one tobacco leaf bale into the mobile receiving station, the loading ramp arranged along a first direction;
- an unloading ramp configured to unload the at least one tobacco leaf bale from the mobile receiving station;
- a scale configured to measure a bale weight of the at least one tobacco leaf bale;
- and
- a conveyor belt and a lateral transfer, wherein
- the conveyor belt is configured to receive the at least one tobacco leaf bale from the loading ramp,
- the lateral transfer is configured to receive the at least one tobacco leaf bale from the conveyor belt and transfer the at least one tobacco leaf bale to the unloading ramp, and
- the unloading ramp is further configured to unload the at least one tobacco leaf bale from the mobile receiving station, the unloading ramp arranged in a second direction different from the first direction of the loading ramp.
A method comprising:
- receiving at least one tobacco leaf bale into a mobile receiving station via a loading ramp, the loading ramp arranged along a first direction;
- transferring the at least one tobacco leaf bale to a conveyor belt;
- measuring a bale weight of the at least one tobacco leaf bale using a scale;
- transferring the at least one tobacco leaf bale from the conveyor belt to an unloading ramp using a lateral transfer;
- and
- unloading the at least one tobacco leaf bale from the mobile receiving station using the unloading ramp, the unloading ramp arranged in a second direction different from the first direction of the loading ramp.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.