Tracking foldable cart
AssigneeFTR Systems, Inc
InventorsChunghsin Lee, Jian Zhang
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A foldable cart assembly which is arranged to provide trackable transportation to a product or a person. The cart contains sensors and computer-controlled drive wheels to enable that cart assembly, when fully opened, to follow a safe path as directed by received electronic signals. That cart assembly is also tri-foldably collapsible, so as to have multiple portions pivoted into nesting configuration with one another thus containable in a minimal volume and even carried by an individual.
Claims19
An articulably collapsible cart assembly having a lower frame, the cart assembly enabled to carry a load in an open orientation, and to be collapsed into a minimal tri-folded configuration without a load, the cart assembly comprising:
- a lower frame first end having a pair of free-wheeling support wheels in a spaced apart manner on an axle;
- a lower frame second end connected to the first end by an elongated connecting frame, the second end having a pair of wheels thereon, and wherein the elongated connecting frame has a mid-frame lower collapse axis thereon which permits the first end of the elongated frame to be folded very compactly under the lower frame second end;
- an upper frame arrangement connected to the lower frame, the upper frame arrangement having an uppermost collapse axis thereacross and an intermediate, transversely disposed, cart-assembly-carry, collapse axis thereacross, wherein the intermediate axis comprises a carry handle, the uppermost collapse axis and the intermediate collapse axis enabling the uppermost frame arrangement to be pivoted counter to one another towards the lower frame, to collapse the cart assembly into a hand-carryable configuration by the intermediate, cart-assembly-carry collapse axis handle.
A method of collapsing a cart assembly from an open, load carrying configuration to a collapsed minimally sized, hand carryable configuration, comprising:
- connecting a wheeled first frame end to a wheeled second frame end by a lower pivot axis articulably disposed midway therebetween, thereby constructing an elongated lower frame arrangement;
- connecting an upper frame arrangement to the wheeled second end of the lower frame arrangement;
- dividing the upper frame arrangement into an intermediate, pivotable frame portion and a pivotably attached uppermost frame portion connected to one another by an upper pivot axis;
- swinging the wheeled first end of the elongated lower frame arrangement about its lower, midway-disposed, pivot axis, and into a disposition under the wheeled second frame end of the elongated lower frame;
- swinging the uppermost frame portion about the upper pivot axis into a nesting disposition between side portions of the intermediate pivotable frame portion;
- swinging the combined uppermost frame portion nested between the side portions of the intermediate pivotable frame portion and the intermediate pivotable frame portion about an intermediate cart-assembly-carry pivot axis comprising a carry handle so as to lie on top of and into close nesting orientation with the second wheeled end of the elongated lower frame portion, wherein the intermediate pivot axis thus becomes a carry handle for the cart assembly.
An articulably collapsible autonomously mobile cart assembly enabled to carry a load in an open orientation, collapsable into a minimal tri-folded configuration without a load, the cart assembly comprising:
- an elongated lower frame having a pair of free-wheeling support wheels on an axle at one first end, and a pair of individually driven, individually instructed, multi-direction-of-rotation and individual speed controlled drive wheels at a second end of the elongated frame, the elongated frame having a transversely disposed pivot axis at a mid-point thereof to enable the elongated frame to nestably fold the first end thereof under the second end thereof;
- an upper frame arrangement connected to a lower connector frame, the upper frame arrangement having an uppermost collapse axis thereacross and a combination intermediate collapse axis and cart-assembly-carry-handle thereacross, the uppermost collapse axis and the intermediate collapse axis enabling the uppermost frame arrangement and the lower connector frame to be pivoted counter to one another towards the lower elongated frame, to thus enable the collapse of the cart assembly into a hand-carryable configuration.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.