Lockheed Martin Corporation

John Rasile

Michael E Caporali

Shane F Mills

Brian Sharkey

Thomas Arnold

Richard J Holmberg

A bidirectional article pusher for a conveying system, which includes a multiplicity of spaced rollers for moving articles along a longitudinal path. There is a push up stop arranged below the conveyor and movable between adjacent rollers to a position above the rollers to stop forward movement of an article which is on the rollers. There are lateral stations, one on each side of a section of the conveying system, and lateral diverters move articles which are on the rollers and stopped by the push up stop, to a position off of the rollers and out of the longitudinal path and at a right angle to the longitudinal path. A stop activator is controlled based upon information, such as that on a bar code sort label on an article and which has been previously provided to the control device upstream of the push up stop. There are three jam detection/correction devices provided to assure proper operation. One is a proximity sensor to detect the presence of the pusher fingers while in their home position. The other is a current overload sensor circuit which detects jams. The third is a number of software timers embedded in the control software for controlling the diverter arrangement. There is also an acceleration profiler which obtains weight information and uses it to control acceleration/deceleration of the articles being moved.

Bi-directional mail tray pusher

A conveying system for conveying articles, each having a label with indicia, on one end, either a leading or a trailing end. There is a conveyor having multiple sections, each defining a longitudinal conveying path for moving the articles. Each is driven independently from the other sections. The conveyor has a plurality of tray sensors, with at least one on each conveyor section for detecting whether there is a tray on that section. There is also a scanner which detects whether a tray moving along the conveyor has a label on its leading end or its trailing end. A turning arm conveyor section is located downstream from the scanner and arranged to receive control signals from the scanner for momentarily intercepting all articles which are determined by the detector to have the label on the incorrect end. This turning arm conveyor has a turning arm, and a limit stop arranged to prevent the articles moved angularly from being moved further than desired. This turning arm conveyor moves those articles angularly approximately 50 to 75 degrees to be out of their normal position along the longitudinal path of the conveyor. A stationary bump and turn element is located downstream from the turning arm conveyor for engaging those articles which are moved out of their normal position along the longitudinal path and moving them further angularly a sufficient amount that they are moved 180 degrees.

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Owego, NY, United States of America

John Rasile