Method and apparatus for transporting a plurality of stacked motorized transport units

Abstract

A housing contains a plurality of motorized transport units in a stacked relationship to one another, with a bottom-most one of the plurality of motorized transport units serving as a locomotion mechanism that selectively causes movement of the housing with the plurality of motorized transport units contained therein. By one approach the aforementioned housing has a cylindrical form factor and includes a cylindrically-shaped chamber configured to receive the motorized transport units By one approach, for example, this housing includes no lifting mechanism to lift any of the motorized transport units into itself and further has no integral locomotion mechanism by which the housing can move itself. The interior of the housing can include at least one track formed therein to receive a corresponding part of each of the plurality of motorized transport units which the motorized transport units can engage to thereby lift themselves into the interior of the housing.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.