Automated method of and system for identifying and measuring packages transported through a laser scanning tunnel

An automated system for automatically identifying and measuring packages moving along a conveyor structure in a singulated or non-singulated manner, said automated system comprising:

• a package conveyor system having a conveyor structure to support one or more package transport lanes along the conveyor structure;
• a scanning tunnel including bar code symbol reading subsystems supported overhead, alongside, and/or below the conveyor structure by a support frame, for generating a scanning volume thereabove, for scanning bar codes on packages transported therethrough;
• a first multiple-package detection and dimensioning subsystem arranged on the input side of said scanning tunnel,
• a master clock for generating a global time reference used in connection with the time stamping of data elements generated within the system;
• a package velocity measurement subsystem;
• an input/output subsystem for managing the data inputs to and data outputs from said system;
• and
• a data management computer, with a graphical user interface (GUI), for realizing a data element queuing, handling and processing subsystem as well as other data and system management functions,
• wherein said first multiple-package detection and dimensioning subsystem located on said input side of said scanning tunnel comprises:
• a package height/run-length difference engine for processing, as input, each height profile data array {Hn;i} of length N provided to its data input ports at sampling time Ti, and producing as output a height/width profile difference data array {ΔHn;n−1;i} of length N−1 indicative of package height profile changes between position n and n−1 at sampling time Ti with respect to the widthwise dimension of said conveyor structure;
• a package height/width difference engine for processing, as input, time-consecutive height profile data arrays {Hn;i} and {Hn;i+1} each of length N, and producing as output a height profile difference data array {ΔHn;i;i−1} of length N−1, indicative of package height profile changes at sampling position n over sampling times Ti and Ti−1 with respect to the run-lengthwise dimension of said conveyor structure;
• and
• a height profile data analyzer for processing, as input, each height/width profile difference data array {ΔHn;n−1;i} and height/run-length difference data array {ΔHn;n−1;i} produced by the difference engines, and producing as output, time-stamped PIT data elements as well as time-stamped Package Dimension Data Elements (PDEs) for buffering in moving package tracking queues.

An automated sysem for automatically identifying and measuring packages moving along a conveyor structure in a singulated or non-singulated manner, said automated system comprising:

• a package conveyor system having a conveyor structure to support one or more package transport lanes along the conveyor structure;
• a scanning tunnel including a bar code symbol reading subsystems supported overhead, alongside, and/or below the conveyor structure by a support frame, for generating a scanning volume thereabove, for scanning bar codes on packages transported therethrough;
• a first multiple-package detection and dimensioning subsystem arranged on the input side of said scanning tunnel,
• a master clock for generating a global time reference used in connection with the time stamping of data elements generated within the system;
• a package velocity measurement subsystem;
• an input/output system for managing the data inputs to and data outputs from said system;
• and
• a data management computer, with a graphical user interface (GUI), for realizing a data element queuing, handling and processing subsystem as well as other data and system management functions,
• wherein a second simultaneous multiple-package detection and dimensioning subsystem located on said input side of laser scanning tunnel subsystem comprises:
• a package height/run-length difference engine for processing, as input, each height profile data array {Hn;i} of length N provided to its data input ports at sampling time Ti, and producing as output a height/width profile difference data array {ΔHn,n−1;i} of length N−1 indicative of package height profile changes between position n and n−1 at sampling time Ti with respect to the widthwise dimension of said conveyor structure;
• a package height/width difference engine for processing, as input, time-consecutive height profile data arrays {Hn;i} and {Hn;i+1} each of length N, and producing as output a height profile difference data array {ΔHn;i,i−1} of length N-1, indicative of package height profile changes at sampling position n over sampling times Ti and Ti−1 with respect to the run-lengthwise dimension of said conveyor structure;
• and
• a height profile data analyzer for processing, as input, each height/width profile difference data array {ΔHn,n−1;i} and height/run-length difference data array {ΔHn,n−1;i} produced by the difference engines, and producing as output, time-stamped PIT data elments as well as time-stamped Package Dimension Data Elements (PDEs) for buffering in moving package tracking queues.