The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 28, 2019
Filed:
Jul. 20, 2017
Amazon Technologies, Inc., Seattle, WA (US);
Brian Hoffman, Seattle, WA (US);
Martin Peter Aalund, Seattle, WA (US);
David Alspaugh, Seattle, WA (US);
Samuel Gardner Garrett, Seattle, WA (US);
Paul Roy Raines, Jr., Seattle, WA (US);
Timothy Alan Talda, Seattle, WA (US);
Akshay Tilekar, Seattle, WA (US);
Stephanie Tomasetta, Seattle, WA (US);
Eric Wyman, Auburn, WA (US);
Toby Ge Xu, Seattle, WA (US);
Amazon Technologies, Inc., Seattle, WA (US);
Abstract
In one embodiment, a system has a carousel that has a guiderail that forms a loop that has a loading position and an unloading position. The carousel also has a plurality of buckets, each having an upper end and a lower end. The lower end includes at least one bottom wall that is moveable between (i) a transporting configuration where the at least one bottom wall substantially closes the lower end of the bucket and (ii) a discharge configuration where the at least one bottom wall is moved so as to define an opening in the lower end of the bucket. The buckets are supported by the guiderail such that the buckets can be driven from the loading position towards the unloading position in the transporting configuration. The buckets can be transitioned to the discharge configuration so as to unload inventory items at the unloading position into a packaging material.