Conveying apparatus

Abstract

A conveying apparatus includes a conveying portion configured to convey conveyed items at a predetermined speed, a speed adjustment portion arranged midway in the conveying portion, the speed adjustment portion being configured to adjust the conveying speed of the conveyed items, a thickness detector arranged further upstream in conveying direction than the speed adjustment portion, the thickness detector being configured to detect a thickness of the conveyed items; a gap detector arranged further upstream in conveying direction than the speed adjustment portion of the conveying portion, the gap detector being configured to detect a preceding gap between a conveyed item and the conveyed item that is conveyed immediately in front of that conveyed item and a following gap between that conveyed item and the conveyed item that is conveyed immediately behind that conveyed item; and a control device configured to control the adjustment speed of the conveyed item by the speed adjustment portion. The control device is configured to decide a correction distance based on the thickness of the conveyed item detected by the thickness detector, to determine a corrected preceding gap by adding this correction distance to the preceding gap detected by the gap detector, to determine a corrected following gap by subtracting this correction distance from the following gap detected by the gap detector, and to decide the adjustment speed based on the corrected preceding gap and the corrected following gap.