Control system for an accumulating conveyor

Abstract

An accumulating conveyor includes a plurality of load carrying rollers over which loads are conveyed from an upstream end of the conveyor to a downstream end. The rollers are divided into a plurality of zones. Each zone includes at least one drive roller and may include one or more idler rollers. Each zone includes a controller which is connected between the power supply and the drive roller for that zone. The controller receives a variable input signal which is indicative of the drive roller speed for the immediately adjacent downstream zone, and produces an output signal based on the variable input signal. The output signal is used to adjust the speed of the associated drive roller and is also used as the input signal for the controller of the next adjacent upstream zone. Accordingly, the speed of each zone is continuously adjusted based on the speed of its immediately preceding zone.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.