Illinois Tool Works Inc.

Hartness International, Inc.

Gregory Bruns

Robert C Beesley

Mathias N Coulomb

Roger T Johnston

Matthew A Job

Christopher Ray

Brian Merritt

Bernard McPheely

John Griffin Miller

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

Apparatus, flight bar assemblies, and methods are disclosed for nesting objects into a substantially staggered arrangement. Such nesting may be done in a nesting zone of a machine, for example, just upstream of a shrink wrapping machine. The nested arrangement allows the grouping of nested objects to be shrink-wrapped without use of trays or cardboard blanks if desired. The flight bar assemblies may include movable spacers for orienting rows of objects before, during, and after nesting. Lane dividers may be provided having lengths corresponding to a contour of an outer guide and cam surface, cooperating with the lane dividers to selectively urging the rows of objects inward in an organized fashion to allow efficient and reliable nesting.

Flight bar assembly, apparatus and methods for nestable collation of objects

An apparatus for diverting a stream of articles includes a first conveyor driven in a first direction and at a first speed around a first axle, and a second conveyor is driven in a second direction generally opposite of the first direction and at a second speed around a second axle, the first and second conveyors disposed generally parallel to each other. A diverter element extends at least partially across the first and second conveyors to divert articles conveyed on the first conveyor onto the second conveyor. A differential drive mechanism is operatively interconnected with and driven by the first and second axles in a direction responsive to a relative rotation speed difference between the first and second axles, the differential drive mechanism being located exterior to the first and second conveyors. An endless loop is operatively connected to the diverter element and the differential drive mechanism, the endless loop being driven by the differential drive mechanism to thereby move the diverter element in a path generally parallel to the first and second conveyors. Related structures, drives, and controls are also disclosed.

Apparatus for diverting a stream of articles

Growing community of inventors

Moore, SC, United States of America

Gregory Bruns