International Business Machines Corporation

William C Steene

William Van Durrett

Gerald Whitfield Hieronymus

Margaret L Scurry

Marguerite A Pond

Todd D Price

An automatic palletizer system loads a random set of different size and weight boxes onto a pallet without a prior knowledge of the boxes to be loaded. As the boxes pass along a conveyor belt on the way to the pallet, a weighing, dimensioning, and scanning station determines the weight, dimensions and contents of each box. A processor uses this information to continuously remap the optimal pallet configuration for the loading of the remaining boxes as the pallet is loaded. A queuing station, under direction of the processor, reshuffles the sequence of a limited number of boxes to improve the final pallet configuration. The pallet is loaded by a robot arm under direction of the processor.

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Gastonia, NC, United States of America

William C Steene