US 5,842,188 AGranted

Unattended automated system for selling and dispensing with change dispensing capability

AssigneeJTW Operations, Inc.

InventorsFurman D. Ramsey, James Williams

Life of this patent

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Abstract

A system for an unattended automated service station for selling and dispensing products, primarily motor fuel, cards, from a service island, whereby a purchaser may purchase any selected quantity of motor fuel and pay for such quantity of fuel by a credit or debit card and may receive change in the form of currency and coins from his payment or as a result of a cash advance on the credit or ATM card. The station includes a security building housing a work station to control the dispensation of specific quantities of motor fuel from one or more fuel dispensers on associated service islands. The system includes fuel dispensing means, card reader means, coin and currency acceptor means, card verification means, coin and currency dispensing means, receipt printing means, processor control means, fuel dispensing activating and selection means, display means, audio means, receipt generating means, data transmission means, and a processor control means. The components interact to enable a consumer to select a specific fuel or product purchase and pay for the purchase by either indirect payment through a credit card or by direct payment through any combination of coins or currency, have the fuel dispensing automatically activated, enable delivery of a preselected quantity of fuel, provide a cash or credit card receipt, and provide other information concerning other products or services for sale during the fuel delivery process.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A system for operating an unattended, automated motor fuel service station for selling quantities of motor fuel to a purchaser, comprising:

at least one fuel pump for dispensing a preselected quantity of motor fuel, means for enabling operation of the fuel pump in response to a fuel pump enabling signal, said fuel pump having means for determining the amount of fuel dispensed and generating a signal indicative of the quantity of fuel dispensed from said fuel pump;
a customer console associated with said pump, means for enabling operation of the customer console in response to a customer console enabling signal, said customer console including payment acceptance means for accepting cash from the purchaser as payment for a quantity of motor fuel purchased, said customer console payment acceptance means including currency acceptance means for accepting currency as payment for said motor fuel purchase and coin acceptance means for accepting coins as payment for said motor fuel purchase, each of said currency and coin acceptance means having means for identifying the respective values of currency and coin deposited by said purchaser with said customer console payment acceptance means and means for generating respective currency and coin value identification signals in response to cash deposited with said customer console;
a controller operatively interconnected to said console payment acceptance means, the console controller having means for receiving said currency and coin value identification signals and calculating a total of cash deposited with said customer console by said purchaser, said console controller having means for generating currency and coin dispensing signals;
change dispensing means for dispensing change to said purchaser in cash as part of a purchase of said motor fuel, said cash being dispensed as change to said purchaser as currency, coins or a combination of both depending on the amount of change dispensed, the change dispensing means including a currency payout mechanism operable to pay out currency upon receipt of a currency dispensing signal from said console controller and a plurality of coin payout mechanisms each of said coin payment mechanisms being associated with a different denomination coin and each having a supply of said coins operatively associated therewith, said coin payment mechanisms being operable to payout a coin of preselected denomination from its associated coin supply upon receipt of a coin dispensing signal from said console controller;
and,
system control means operatively linking said fuel pump and said customer console together, the system control means including means for generating enabling and disabling signals to said fuel pump and customer console, said system control means further including means for two-way communication with said fuel pump and said customer console.

3 more elements

A customer cash console for use in conjunction with a motor fuel pump, the cash console permitting the automated operation of the pump by a purchaser in response to an amount of cash deposited into said cash console by the purchaser, the cash console comprising:

cash acceptance means for accepting cash from said purchaser, the cash acceptance means including a currency acceptor and a coin acceptor, the currency acceptor having means for examining and validating currency deposited into said console by said purchaser, means for generating unique currency identification signals that identify the value of said deposited currency when validated by said currency examining and validating means and means for storing said currency deposited in said cash acceptance means, the coin acceptor having means for examining and validating coins deposited into said console by said purchaser, means for generating unique coin identification signals that identify the value of said deposited coins when validated by said coin examining and validating means and means for sorting said coins deposited according to their denomination;
change dispensing means for dispensing change to said purchaser as change due said purchaser when said deposited cash exceeds the value of fuel dispensed from said fuel pump, the change dispensing means including a currency dispenser, the currency dispenser having a supply of dispensable currency and means for dispensing said dispensable currency upon receipt of a currency dispensing signal and a plurality of coin dispensers each of the coin dispensers having a supply of dispensable coins, each of said coin dispensers being associated with a different denomination dispensable coin and means for dispensing said dispensable coins upon receipt of a coin dispensing signal;
console control means operatively interconnecting said cash acceptance means and said change dispensing means for controlling the operation of said cash console, said console control means receiving said unique currency and coin identification signals from said currency and coin acceptors and generating cash deposit signals indicative of said cash deposited in said cash acceptance means, said console control means further including means for generating said currency and coin dispensing signals.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.