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. 06, 1998
Filed:
Apr. 12, 1996
Michael J Kramer, Burlington, KY (US);
Jerry A List, Hebron, KY (US);
Weston R Loomer, Walton, KY (US);
Thomas T Von Handorf, Burlington, KY (US);
HK Systems, Inc., New Berlin, WI (US);
Abstract
A monorail vehicle used for material handling purposes comprises a number of cars which run on a track. The cars are linked together in one or more trains and each train has a master car and several slave cars. An embedded computer in the master car keeps track of the location on the train on the track by means of pulses from a Hall effect sensor in a brushless DC motor which powers the train. A central computer in an off board work station issues commands to the train and by monitoring its position on the track loop, the embedded computer in the master car of the train determines when to execute the command. A special jumper is used to connect the cars of the train together which distributes control signals to the various cars in the train without regard to the position of the cars in the train.