Solystic

Karim Kara

Pierre Campagnolle

Bruno Cartal

François Madar

Eric Moullard

Alain Danjaume

Jean Rieu

Jean-Marc Teluob

Didier Tresse

Jacques Petit

Karine Crest

Christian Duclot

David Morisot

Stephane Marisy

Daniel Abraham

The invention relates to a system () for conveying articles (), which system comprises an article conveyor () extending from an upstream end () to a downstream end (), and a motor-driven shuttle trolley () having an article carrier deck () and designed to dock with said ends of the conveyor so as to transfer an article between the trolley and the conveyor. The conveyor is a gravity conveyor under which a ramp () extends, and the trolley is suitable for travelling under the conveyor and is provided with a lever () that is mounted to move vertically relative to the deck and that is designed to co-operate with the ramp while the trolley is moving under the conveyor so that, by following the ramp, the lever moves between a retracted position in which it is retracted under the conveyor and a deployed position in which it projects above the conveyor so as to drive an article along the conveyor. The method of matching digital images of the same article in a data processor unit comprises the steps of: transforming each digital image of an article into a local divergence topographic map of the luminance gradient vector field; detecting singularities or extrema of local divergence in the luminance gradient vector field, such singularities corresponding to points of interest in said digital image; and, for each detected point of interest, encoding the values for the singularity of the gradient field that are located on a plurality of concentric rings centered on the point of interest so as to derive a digital data vector (); and transforming said vector into a digital hash key () by means of a family of hash functions of the cosine Locality-Sensitive Hashing (LSH) type.

System for conveying articles

A postal sorting machine includes a sorting conveyor having sorting outlets, a first feed branch adapted for automatically injecting heterogeneous postal articles of the small parcel type into the sorting conveyor, and a second feed branch adapted for injecting homogeneous flat mailpieces of the letter type, or the magazine type, or of some analogous type into the sorting conveyor. The first feed branch has an inlet adapted for receiving the heterogeneous postal articles loose, and it is provided with at least one robotized handling arm of the 'pick and place' type.

Postal sorting machine with robotized handling arms

A method of sorting mailpieces by using a dynamic assignment process and an overbooking mechanism whereby an overbooked sorting destination (D) is substituted for a sorting destination that is already assigned to a certain sorting outlet (S) comprises the following steps: a) identifying from among said sorting outlets (S) a sorting outlet that has a filling level (N) greater than a first threshold (s) and the longest idle time, and assigning the overbooked sorting destination to that sorting outlet; b) if all of the sorting outlets (S) have filling levels (N) less than said first threshold (s), identifying from among the sorting outlets the sorting outlet that has the longest idle time, assigning that sorting outlet to said overbooked sorting destination, and indicating that said other sorting destination is a sorting destination to be amalgamated.

Method of sorting small flows of mail

Apparatus designed to cancel at least one postage or franking mark on a surface of a mailpiece moving on edge in a belt conveyor, said apparatus comprising: a conveyor portion with a plurality of small superposed belts and a plurality of superposed print heads; and control means for controlling the print heads in such a manner as to cause a print head to print one or more cancellation marks over the franking mark(s) detected on the mailpiece. Each print head is suitable for operating selectively with a plurality of superposed inkjets so as to print only a portion (&#xbe;, &#xbd;, &#xbc;) of said cancellation mark or a scaled-down version thereof over the franking mark when said franking mark is positioned in such a manner as to be off-center between two belts.

Cancellation apparatus

A storage bin for mail items comprises a plurality of side walls and a bottom. The bottom comprises two walls that are inclined one relative to the other, one of the two walls constituting a jogging wall for jogging the mail items into alignment in the bottom of the storage bin.

Storage bin for letters and flat pieces of mail

A method of sorting postal items in a plurality of sorting passes in a sorting machine having sort outlets with removable trays, the method including the steps of: (i) after a first sorting pass during which the sorted items are stored in the trays, determining and storing in a memory the pass sequence in which the items are to pass through the sorting machine for the subsequent sorting pass; and (ii) during said subsequent sorting pass, while a current item to be directed towards a sort-outlet tray is passing, determining in the pass sequence the difference in rank between the current item and a next item immediately following the current item and that is to be directed to the same sort-outlet tray as the current item, and comparing the difference with a threshold for causing the sort-outlet tray to be replaced with an empty tray.

Growing community of inventors

Chabeuil, France

Karim Kara