Lockheed Martin Corporation

Thomas Arnold

Michael E Caporali

John T Swider

Shane F Mills

Eric Reisenauer

Brian Sharkey

John Rasile

A system and method designed to position a tray for either horizontal stacking or vertical stacking of product. The system includes a stationary conveyor and a tray carriage in a tray transportation path with the conveyor. The tray carriage is moveable between an elevated, horizontal position and an inclined position. Guides are located near the tray carriage to guide the tray carriage into the inclined position.

Tray positioning device for stacking of product

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

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Owego, NY, United States of America

Thomas Arnold