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:
Oct. 28, 1986
Filed:
Jul. 29, 1983
Barry C Conklin, Easton, PA (US);
SI Handling Systems, Inc., Easton, PA (US);
Abstract
An intelligent driverless vehicle rolls on a track and has a pair of drive wheels which engage with a rotating drive shaft. The angular position of the drive wheels relative to the drive shaft determines the speed of the vehicle. Each vehicle has a microcomputer associated therewith, a position encoder for supplying information regarding the position of the vehicle to the microcomputer, an angular position encoder for providing information regarding the angular position of the drive wheels to the microcomputer for the computation of vehicle speed, and a drive wheel control means and associated linkage for changing the angular position of the drive wheels and thus vehicle speed in response to commands from the onboard microcomputer. The microcomputer communicates with a central computer via a bidirectional communications link. The central computer controls the speed and acceleration of each vehicle by selectively communicating with the microcomputers on board the vehicles.