Overlapped-transfer detecting apparatus for mail article
AssigneeNEC Corporation
InventorsShigenobu Kasuya, Yoshihiro Matsuda, Tetsuo Umeda
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A detector for use in a mail sorter is positioned along a path over which articles (letters, postcards, etc.) travel while in an upright position. A problem with such paths is that sometimes articles are overlapped, and sometimes small articles are hidden behind large articles. The invention detects such overlaps by (1) detecting height changes of any single article which trips a detector only once, and (2) forcibly displacing one article relative to the other of two overlapped articles. The change of length resulting from the forced displacement is detected.
Claims10
An apparatus for detecting articles while they are being moved along a transport path, said apparatus comprising detector means for detecting each article as it moves along said path, scanner means for detecting the height of each of said articles throughout its entire length while said articles are moving past said detector means, and means responsive to an apparent change in height for signaling a possible overlap condition to indicate that probably said detector means has responded once to more than one article.
An overlapped-transfer detecting apparatus for flat articles comprising:
- transferring means for transferring flat articles through transport path while in an upstanding state;
- scanning means disposed along said transport path for cyclically scanning each of said flat articles transferred through said transport path in a direction perpendicular to a transfer direction of said flat articles;
- measuring means coupled to said scanning means for cyclically measuring a height of said flat article to produce a train of a plurality of data pulses, each train representing said height for each scan;
- and
- detecting means coupled to said measuring means for detecting a transition of data in said train in order to produce an overlapped-transfer detecting signal.
An overlapped-transfer detecting apparatus for a mail article comprising:
- means for transferring mail articles through a transport path while in an upstanding state;
- means disposed along said transport path for cyclically scanning said mail articles transferred through said transport path to cyclically produce a height signal which is indicative of a height of said mail article;
- means for detecting a change in said height signal to produce a first overlapped detection signal;
- forcing means disposed along said transport path for applying a force with different speeds to opposite sides of said mail article being transferred through said transport path;
- first means disposed before said forcing means and along said transport path for measuring a length of said mail article, said length being measured in a transfer direction to produce a first length signal;
- second means disposed after said forcing means and along said transport path for making a second measurement of a length of said mail article in said transfer direction to produce a second length signal;
- and
- means for comparing said first and second length signals to produce a second overlapped-transfer detection signal when a comparison result of said comparing means exceeds a predetermined level.
An overlapped-transfer detecting apparatus for a mail article comprising:
- scanner means disposed along a transport path for cyclically scanning a mail article while it is being transferred through said transport path while in an upstanding vertical state;
- a height measuring circuit coupled to said scanner for measuring the height of said mail article for each scan to produce a height signal;
- and
- transition detector means coupled to said height measuring circuit for detecting a transition of said height signal with respect to said mail article.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.