Conveying Apparatuses

A conveying apparatus comprising:

• a support section configured to support a plurality of articles thereon and disposed between a receiving section for receiving the articles and a feeding section for feeding the articles to a processing machine;
• a detection section configured to detect an arrival of each of the articles at the receiving section;
• a circulation track including a magnetic field generating device configure to generate a magnetic field;
• a plurality of travelers moveably disposed along the circulation track and configured to move independently of each other along the track in response to driving forces produced by the magnetic field generating device, wherein each of the travelers comprises a first pushing member;
• wherein the plurality of travelers are configured to push the articles arriving at the receiving section one after another to move the articles to the feeding section along the support section;
• a controller configured to adjust a distance between each pair of adjacent travelers and a travelling speed of each of the travelers during the movement of the articles along the support section in a forward direction so that the articles are fed from the feeding section to the processing machine to match article process timing at predetermined intervals of the processing machine;
• wherein the controller is configured to associate one of the travelers with each of the articles before arriving at the receiving section in response to detection information from the detection section and to output a command so that, when each of the articles arrives at the receiving section, a driving force is applied to the traveler associated with the arrived article in order to push the corresponding article to reach the feeding section;
• wherein the controller comprises:
• a timing acquisition section configured to acquire information regarding the article process timing of the processing machine;
• and
• a determination section configured to determine, in conjunction with the association of any one of the travelers to each of the articles and based on the information regarding the process timing, whether the article subjected to the association can arrive at the feeding section at the process timing for arrival at the feeding section, which is directly subsequent to the process timing when the article directly preceding the article subjected to the association arrives at the feeding section;
• wherein if the determination by the determination section is that the article subjected to the association cannot arrive at the feeding section at the process timing for arrival at the feeding section, in order that another one of the first pushing members, which is different from the first pushing member pushing the article subjected to the association, travels on a front side of the article subjected to the association, the controller is configured to associate the article subjected to the association with two of the plurality of travelers, and the controller is configured to adjust a distance in the moving direction between the first pushing member pushing the article subjected to the association and the other one of the first pushing members and the moving speeds thereof to match the article process timing of the processing machine.