Aspects and embodiments of the invention are directed to item handling systems, methods, and applications thereof. More particularly, a storage, dispensing, and receiving system and associated methods adapted for seismic sensors (nodes). Most particularly, a storage, dispensing, and receiving system and associated methods adapted for nodes in a marine environment. A seismic sensor (‘node’) handling system is described in co-owned U.S. Pat. No. 8,087,848. The '848 patent describes a node storage device comprised of a series of independently actuatable conveyor sections horizontally oriented one above the other at different, fixed heights above the back deck of the ship. These sub-systems are replicated side-by-side and end-to end so as to provide storage for, and more importantly fast access to, a large number of nodes. The speed with which nodes can be delivered to the node deployment/recovery workstation limits in part the maximum speed at which the entire node deployment/recovery operation can be conducted, including vessel speed. The main reason each node has a place on an independently actuatable conveyor is for speedy access and (horizontal) transit.
While this system has been employed successfully, there are recognized shortcomings in its design. There is vast amount of machinery to purchase, install, and maintain related to the conveyors themselves. Each conveyor belt has its own motors, gears, sprockets, bearings, and slip surfaces. Since each belt is continuous, it traverses the length of the storage rack twice. In one installation almost two miles of conveyor belt are required to store fewer than 3000 nodes. The physical space required for the storage and conveyance structures presents another issue. The nodes themselves are heavy, requiring the conveyor mechanism on which they rest to be of substantial mechanical strength. The conveyors, at a minimum, must be separated vertically by S=the sum of: 1) the height of the nodes; 2) the height of the conveyor machinery; and 3) space for the belt to traverse the return path beneath the conveyor machinery without interference. In many instances the conveyors and their related machinery may consume more space than the nodes themselves. This drastically reduces the density of node storage possible in a given space. For any given number of nodes this may require a larger vessel than might otherwise be necessary and the substantial cost associated therewith.
For these reasons and others appreciated by those skilled in the art, there exists a need for a node storage, dispensing, and receiving apparatus and method that maintains current or provides improved speed of access, and further provides higher storage density and reduced complexity and machinery to purchase, install, and maintain than available under the current state of the art.
Definitions as Used Herein
The term ‘about’ means the amount of the specified quantity plus/minus a fractional amount (e.g., ±10%, ±9%, ±8%, ±7%, ±6%, ±5%, ±4%, ±3%, ±2%, ±1%, etc.) thereof that a person skilled in the art would recognize as typical and reasonable for that particular quantity or measurement. Likewise, the term ‘substantially’ means as close to or similar to the specified term being modified as a person skilled in the art would recognize as typical and reasonable; for e.g., within typical manufacturing and/or assembly tolerances, as opposed to being intentionally different by design and implementation.
The most general aspects of the invention are an item storage, dispensing, and receiving apparatus and method.
An aspect of the invention is an item storage, dispensing, and receiving apparatus that includes a frame assembly having a height, H, and a length, L, including at least one section thereof having two opposing side wall sections, wherein each opposing side wall section includes a plurality of vertically spaced rails disposed on an inner surface thereof such that each rail on a respective side wall section is disposed opposite a corresponding rail on the opposing side wall section, further wherein the at least one section has an open space fully extending intermediate the plurality of vertically spaced rails between the two opposing side wall sections over the height H and the length L, and one or more conveyance mechanisms operatively disposed within the open space along at least a portion of the length L, wherein the one or more conveyance mechanisms are movable in a vertical direction traversing the open space along the height H. According to various exemplary, non-limiting embodiments, the method may include the following additional steps, features, limitations, and/or characteristics:
An aspect of the invention is an item storage, dispensing, and receiving apparatus including a frame assembly having a height, H, and a length, L, including at least one section thereof having two opposing side wall sections, wherein each opposing side wall section includes a plurality of vertically spaced rails disposed on an inner surface thereof such that each rail on a respective side wall section is disposed opposite a corresponding rail on the opposing side wall section, further wherein the at least one section has an open space fully extending intermediate the plurality of vertically spaced rails between the two opposing side wall sections over the height H and the length L; a track disposed adjacent a top of the frame assembly over the open space along at least a portion of the length L; and a horizontal conveyance mechanism moveably coupled to the track, wherein the conveyance mechanism is further moveable in a vertical direction traversing the open space along the height H. According to various exemplary, non-limiting embodiments, the method may include the following additional steps, features, limitations, and/or characteristics:
An aspect of the invention is an item moving method for moving at least one of a plurality of items vertically disposed in tiered, spaced relation including the steps of vertically moving an item conveyance mechanism from at least one of a position below a lowest tiered item until it engages the item and from a position above a highest tiered item until it engages the item; and horizontally conveying the engaged item to a location different than the horizontal engagement location of the item.
It should be appreciated that all combinations of the foregoing concepts and additional concepts discussed in greater detail below (provided such concepts are not mutually inconsistent) are contemplated as being part of the inventive subject matter disclosed herein. In particular, all combinations of claimed subject matter appearing at the end of this disclosure are contemplated as being part of the inventive subject matter disclosed herein. It should also be appreciated that terminology explicitly employed herein that also may appear in any disclosure incorporated by reference should be accorded a meaning most consistent with the particular concepts disclosed herein.
Nodes 110 are supported on the horizontal supports 511 at their edges alone, the center of the rack, i.e., the space intermediate the opposing walls, being completely open as illustrated in
As illustrated in
In a particular aspect, only a single vertically movable conveyance mechanism is disposed in the open space traversable by the respective one or more conveyance mechanisms; that is, for any given number of conveyance mechanisms disposed along the length of a rack or racks, only a single conveyance mechanism occupies the open space vertically serviceable by the given conveyance mechanism.
The racks can be replicated side-by-side (
As shown in
As described above, the rack 510 is composed of horizontal angle support members 511 that are rigidly affixed to the vertical support members 512 as further indicated in
As illustrated in
A related embodiment is schematically illustrated in
In an embodiment, the system may include both a top-mounted, vertically movable conveyance mechanism as illustrated, e.g., in
While several inventive embodiments have been described and illustrated herein, those of ordinary skill in the art will readily envision a variety of other means and/or structures for performing the function and/or obtaining the results and/or one or more of the advantages described herein, and each of such variations and/or modifications is deemed to be within the scope of the inventive embodiments described herein. More generally, those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that all parameters, dimensions, materials, and configurations described herein are meant to be exemplary and that the actual parameters, dimensions, materials, and/or configurations will depend upon the specific application or applications for which the inventive teachings is/are used. Those skilled in the art will recognize, or be able to ascertain using no more than routine experimentation, many equivalents to the specific inventive embodiments described herein. It is, therefore, to be understood that the foregoing embodiments are presented by way of example only and that, within the scope of the appended claims and equivalents thereto, inventive embodiments may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described and claimed. Inventive embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to each individual feature, system, article, material, kit, and/or method described herein. In addition, any combination of two or more such features, systems, articles, materials, kits, and/or methods, if such features, systems, articles, materials, kits, and/or methods are not mutually inconsistent, is included within the inventive scope of the present disclosure.
All definitions, as defined and used herein, should be understood to control over dictionary definitions, definitions in documents incorporated by reference, and/or ordinary meanings of the defined terms.
The indefinite articles “a” and “an,” as used herein in the specification and in the claims, unless clearly indicated to the contrary, should be understood to mean “at least one.” The phrase “and/or,” as used herein in the specification and in the claims, should be understood to mean “either or both” of the elements so conjoined, i.e., elements that are conjunctively present in some cases and disjunctively present in other cases. Multiple elements listed with “and/or” should be construed in the same fashion, i.e., “one or more” of the elements so conjoined. Other elements may optionally be present other than the elements specifically identified by the “and/or” clause, whether related or unrelated to those elements specifically identified. Thus, as a non-limiting example, a reference to “A and/or B”, when used in conjunction with open-ended language such as “comprising” can refer, in one embodiment, to A only (optionally including elements other than B); in another embodiment, to B only (optionally including elements other than A); in yet another embodiment, to both A and B (optionally including other elements); etc.
As used herein in the specification and in the claims, “or” should be understood to have the same meaning as “and/or” as defined above. For example, when separating items in a list, “or” or “and/or” shall be interpreted as being inclusive, i.e., the inclusion of at least one, but also including more than one, of a number or list of elements, and, optionally, additional unlisted items. Only terms clearly indicated to the contrary, such as “only one of” or “exactly one of,” or, when used in the claims, “consisting of,” will refer to the inclusion of exactly one element of a number or list of elements. In general, the term “or” as used herein shall only be interpreted as indicating exclusive alternatives (i.e. “one or the other but not both”) when preceded by terms of exclusivity, such as “either,” “one of,” “only one of,” or “exactly one of.” “Consisting essentially of,” when used in the claims, shall have its ordinary meaning as used in the field of patent law.
As used herein in the specification and in the claims, the phrase “at least one,” in reference to a list of one or more elements, should be understood to mean at least one element selected from any one or more of the elements in the list of elements, but not necessarily including at least one of each and every element specifically listed within the list of elements and not excluding any combinations of elements in the list of elements. This definition also allows that elements may optionally be present other than the elements specifically identified within the list of elements to which the phrase “at least one” refers, whether related or unrelated to those elements specifically identified. Thus, as a non-limiting example, “at least one of A and B” (or, equivalently, “at least one of A or B,” or, equivalently “at least one of A and/or B”) can refer, in one embodiment, to at least one, optionally including more than one, A, with no B present (and optionally including elements other than B); in another embodiment, to at least one, optionally including more than one, B, with no A present (and optionally including elements other than A); in yet another embodiment, to at least one, optionally including more than one, A, and at least one, optionally including more than one, B (and optionally including other elements); etc.
It should also be understood that, unless clearly indicated to the contrary, in any methods claimed herein that include more than one step or act, the order of the steps or acts of the method is not necessarily limited to the order in which the steps or acts of the method are recited. In the claims, as well as in the specification above, all transitional phrases such as “comprising,” “including,” “carrying,” “having,” “containing,” “involving,” “holding,” “composed of,” and the like are to be understood to be open-ended, i.e., to mean including but not limited to. Only the transitional phrases “consisting of” and “consisting essentially of” shall be closed or semi-closed transitional phrases, respectively, as set forth in the United States Patent Office Manual of Patent Examining Procedures, Section 2111.03.
The instant application claims priority to U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 61/774,131 filed Mar. 7, 2013, the subject matter of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/US2014/021180 | 3/6/2014 | WO | 00 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
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WO2014/138390 | 9/12/2014 | WO | A |
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International Search Report and Written Opinion for International Application No. PCT/US2014/021180, international filing date Mar. 6, 2014, 12 pages. |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20160009491 A1 | Jan 2016 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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61774131 | Mar 2013 | US |