Document transport with gap adjust
AssigneeUnisys Corporation
InventorMichael N. Tranquilla
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Abstract
Disclosed is a method of processing documents by moving them from an input hopper to a destination site at a controlled rate, including driving each document into a feed path from the input hopper at an adjustable time period after a previous document had been fed; then sensing the distance separating that document from a following document, and adjusting the time period between driving of succeeding documents to achieve a desired relationship between the document feed rate and inter-document gap.
Claims5
In a method of processing documents by moving the documents from an input hopper along a path to a destination site at a controlled rate, and enroute, correcting inter document gaps to conform to a set, adjustable gap size, the steps comprising:
- feeding the documents with picker means along a feed path from the input hopper along said path;
- providing advance means along said path intermediate said picker means and said destination site;
- providing intermediate document sensor means along said feed path from the input hopper;
- controllably advancing the document and likewise so driving a following document, with said advance means;
- sensing the distance between a given document and the following document, and adjusting said advance means to accelerate/decelerate the given document to tend toward said set gap size.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.