Illinois Tool Works Inc.

Christopher Ray

Roger T Johnston

Matthew A Job

Gregory Bruns

Craig Kirkpatrick

Brett A Stripe

Bernard McPheely

A system, method and an end effector may arrange into a group two articles within a stream of articles moving spaced apart and in a line in a conveying direction on a conveyor. The system, method, and end effector may contact and slow the more downstream of the two articles and then contact the more upstream of the two articles without substantially slowing the more upstream article to form the group. The end effector may include a downstream stop portion for contacting at least one of the articles.

Continuous motion article arranging systems and methods

A system creates streams of articles on a laning conveyor having differentiated lanes from groups of articles on a feed, the groups each including articles arranged in a grid including at least two rows. The system includes an end effector on a robot arm. The robot arm is configured to simultaneously lift all of the articles in all of the rows of one of the groups from the feed. The end effector has individually actuatable row portions corresponding to the locations of the articles in the groups. The end effector is configured to sequentially place the lifted articles of each of the rows on the laning conveyor in a given lane of the laning conveyor. Related end effectors and methods are disclosed.

Laning robot systems and methods

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Greer, SC, United States of America

Christopher Ray