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:
Sep. 14, 1999
Filed:
Oct. 29, 1996
Yoshinobu Ishikawa, Tokyo, JP;
Tadashi Munakata, Tokyo, JP;
Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba, Kawasaki, JP;
Abstract
This invention provides a convey apparatus capable of conveying a convey target without locally applying an excessive force to it. The convey apparatus includes a convey portion and a medium pressure switching unit. The convey portion has a plurality of medium passages for passing a medium therethrough, and at least part of the surface of the convey portion is made of an elastic material. The diameters of the medium passages can be freely increased/decreased. The medium pressure switching unit controls the pressures of a medium supplied to the respective medium passages of the convey portion to increase or decrease the diameters of the medium passages, thereby generating a carrier wave on the surface of the convey portion. Therefore, according to this convey apparatus, the pressures of the medium supplied to the respective medium passages of the convey portion are controlled by the medium pressure control unit in order to increase or decrease the diameters of the medium passages, thereby generating a carrier wave on the surface of the convey portion made of the elastic material. In this way, convey targets ranging from a flat convey target to a three-dimensional convey target can be conveyed without locally applying an excessive fore to them.