Station independent buffer transport for an inserter system

A buffer transport system for staging accumulated documents produced by an input module of an inserter system prior to transfer to a downstream synchronous transport for downstream processing in the inserter system, the buffer transport comprising:

• a plurality of roller nips in series, the roller nips spaced close enough to transfer minimum length accumulated documents between consecutive roller nips, each of the roller nips driven by an independently controllable motor in communication with a controller;
• one or more sensors in communication with the controller, the sensors sensing positions of lead and trail edges of accumulations of documents transported in the buffer transport system;
• the controller determining movement of each of the plurality of roller nips for every sampling period in a periodic operating cycle, for each sampling period, and for each roller nip, the controller:
• a) slaving the roller nip to a group of slaved roller nips based on which roller nips are needed to control a particular accumulation of documents under its control;
• b) controlling motion of the roller nip in accordance with a predetermined algorithm to bring a lead edge of the particular accumulation within a predetermined gap distance from a trail edge of a downstream accumulation of documents in the buffer transport;
• and wherein the controller further drives a most downstream group of slaved nips to transfer accumulations of documents to the downstream synchronous transport based on the availability of openings on the synchronous transport.