Patent Application
20120017785
The present disclosure is directed, in general, to mail and parcel processing techniques.
Improved and more efficient systems for unloading and sorting parcels from a container or trailer are desirable.
Various disclosed embodiments include a parcel processing system and method. In one embodiment, a parcel processing system includes an automated unloading apparatus, a singulation apparatus, a scan apparatus, and a sorting system. The automated unloading apparatus is configured to unload parcels from a trailer substantially without human intervention. The singulation apparatus is configured to singulate parcels unloaded by the automated unloading apparatus. The scan apparatus is configured to read from the parcels identifying information relating to the parcels. The sorting system is configured to sort the parcels according to the information read from the parcels by the scan apparatus.
In another embodiment, a parcel processing system includes a data processing system, an automated unloading apparatus, a singulation apparatus, a scan apparatus, and a sorting system. The automated unloading apparatus is configured to unload parcels from a trailer substantially without human intervention. The singulation apparatus is configured to singulate parcels unloaded by the automated unloading apparatus. The scan apparatus is configured to read from the parcels identifying information relating to the parcels and send the information to the data processing system. The sorting system is configured to sort the parcels according to information received from the data processing system.
In still another embodiment, a method of processing parcels includes unloading a trailer with an automated unloading apparatus, substantially without human intervention. The method also includes singulating parcels unloaded by the automated unloading apparatus. The method further includes scanning the parcels to read identifying information relating to the parcels. The method also includes sending the information read from the parcels to a data processing system. The method further includes sorting the parcels according to information received from the data processing system.
The foregoing has outlined rather broadly the features and technical advantages of the present disclosure so that those skilled in the art may better understand the detailed description that follows. Additional features and advantages of the disclosure will be described hereinafter that form the subject of the claims. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that they may readily use the conception and the specific embodiment disclosed as a basis for modifying or designing other structures for carrying out the same purposes of the present disclosure. Those skilled in the art will also realize that such equivalent constructions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the disclosure in its broadest form.
Before undertaking the DETAILED DESCRIPTION below, it may be advantageous to set forth definitions of certain words or phrases used throughout this patent document: the terms “include” and “comprise,” as well as derivatives thereof, mean inclusion without limitation; the term “or” is inclusive, meaning and/or; the phrases “associated with” and “associated therewith,” as well as derivatives thereof may mean to include, be included within, interconnect with, contain, be contained within, connect to or with, couple to or with, be communicable with, cooperate with, interleave, juxtapose, be proximate to, be bound to or with, have, have a property of, or the like; and the term “controller” means any device, system or part thereof that controls at least one operation, whether such a device is implemented in hardware, firmware, software or some combination of at least two of the same. It should be noted that the functionality associated with any particular controller may be centralized or distributed, whether locally or remotely. Definitions for certain words and phrases are provided throughout this patent document, and those of ordinary skill in the art will understand that such definitions apply in many, if not most, instances to prior as well as future uses of such defined words and phrases. While some terms may include a wide variety of embodiments, the appended claims may expressly limit these terms to specific embodiments.
For a more complete understanding of the present disclosure, and the advantages thereof, reference is now made to the following descriptions taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein like numbers designate like objects, and in which:
In an effort to increase load density and reduce transportation cost, the trucking industry may use a practice called “bed-loading”. A trailer may be loaded with parcels of a broad range of sizes, weights, and shapes. As used herein, the term ‘trailer’ refers to truck trailers, trucks, shipping containers, and other containers suitable for holding parcels during transportation. As used herein, the term “parcel” refers to an envelope, flats (e.g., cardboard envelope or wrapped magazine), parcel, package, sack, bag, box, barrel, bottle, pallet, luggage, or other item. Sacks and parcels having extreme aspect ratios or weights are typically bed-loaded last in a separate area of the trailer or box bed. On a full trailer, such extreme pieces may be located near the trailer door and would be the first parcels unloaded.
Manually unloading a bed-loaded trailer can be a hard job that may be performed at extreme temperatures with relatively low pay. A person unloading standard parcels with the aid of an extendible conveyor may achieve sustained rates in the range of 1,000 pieces per hour (1K PPH). Sacks and parcels of irregular size/shape are typically unloaded at rates much less than standard parcels. Such reduced rates are often 200-500 PPH, depending on weight, shape, door configuration, and other factors. The time required to load or unload a trailer directly affects dock door utilization/productivity and therefore facility size. Problems have arisen with previous attempts to automate trailer unloading, including solution cost, cube loss, trailer fleet modification, throughput, staffing, parcel size/type/formats, loading constraints/configuration, parcel damage, ease of operation/automation, cost to maintain and ease of retrofitting existing loading dock facilities.
Automated trailer unloaders may unload a trailer substantially without human intervention. Human intervention may be required to initially set up such automated unloaders adjacent to a stack or pile of items in the trailer, to clear a jam preventing items from being unloaded, to reposition the unloader if a gap between stacks or piles of items is encountered, or in other such anomalous circumstances, but such automated unloaders are operable to unload a trailer without human intervention in most other circumstances. Such unloaders may unload a trailer at a rate of 4,000 to 5,000 parcels per hour. As a result, an automated unloading facility with fewer unloading docks may handle a similar volume of parcels as a manual unloading facility with four or five times as many docks.
Other peripherals, such as local area network (LAN)/Wide Area Network/Wireless (e.g. WiFi) adapter 112, may also be connected to local system bus 106. Expansion bus interface 114 connects local system bus 106 to input/output (I/O) bus 116, I/O bus 116 is connected to keyboard/mouse adapter 118, disk controller 120, and adapter 122. Disk controller 120 can be connected to a storage 126, which can be any suitable machine usable or machine readable storage medium, including but not limited to nonvolatile, hard-coded type mediums such as read only memories (ROMs) or erasable, electrically programmable read only memories (EEPROMs), magnetic tape storage, and user-recordable type mediums such as floppy disks, hard disk drives and compact disk read only memories (CD-ROMs) or digital versatile disks (DVDs), and other known optical, electrical, or magnetic storage devices.
I/O adapter 122 can be connected to mail processing and imaging devices 128, as described herein, to image, scan, transport, label, address process, sort, and otherwise processes the mail pieces in accordance with the various embodiments described herein.
Also connected to I/O bus 116 in the example shown is audio adapter 124, to which speakers (not shown) may be connected for playing sounds. Keyboard/mouse adapter 118 provides a connection for a pointing device (not shown), such as a mouse, trackball, trackpointer, etc.
Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the hardware depicted in
A data processing system in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure includes an operating system employing a graphical user interface. The operating system permits multiple display windows to be presented in the graphical user interface simultaneously, with each display window providing an interface to a different application or to a different instance of the same application. A cursor in the graphical user interface may be manipulated by a user through the pointing device. The position of the cursor may be changed and/or an event, such as clicking a mouse button, generated to actuate a desired response.
One of various commercial operating systems, such as a version of Microsoft Windows™, a product of Microsoft Corporation located in Redmond, Wash. may be employed if suitably modified. The operating system is modified or created in accordance with the present disclosure as described.
LAN/WAN/Wireless adapter 112 can be connected to a network 130 (not a part of data processing system 100), which can be any public or private data processing system network or combination of networks, as known to those of skill in the art, including the Internet. LAN/WAN/Wireless adapter 112 can also communicate with packages as described herein, and perform other data processing system or server processes described herein. Data processing system 100 can communicate over network 130 with one or more server systems 140, which are also not part of data processing system 100, but can be implemented, for example, as separate data processing systems 100. A server system 140 can be, for example, a central server system at a central mail processing facility.
A sort induction apparatus 214a according to this disclosure receives parcels from the automated unloading apparatus 204a. The sort induction apparatus 214a includes a conveyor belt or other transport apparatus (not shown in
Parcels next pass through the scan apparatus 210, which is configured to read indicia on or in the parcel that identify the parcel and/or its intended destination. Such indicia may be printed or may be encoded on an electronically read device, such as a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag. In some embodiments, parcels may have been oriented so that all such indicia are presented on a common side of the parcels for example, a top side. In other embodiments, the scan apparatus 210 may be configured to scan all sides of each parcel, to detect such indicia regardless of the orientation of the parcel. The scan apparatus 210 is configured to communicate information obtained from scanning the parcel to a parcel processing control system, such as data processing system 100.
The printing apparatus 212 is configured to print one or more further marks or other indicia on parcels, in response to information in the indicia scanned by the scan apparatus 210. The printing apparatus 212 may receive such information directly from the scan apparatus 210 and/or from the data processing system 100. In some embodiments, all parcels directed to a certain address or group of addresses, or all parcels requiring a certain type of handling, might be marked with blue paint or other obvious indicia for easy recognition at a sorting station. In response, subsequent automated or manual sorting steps may selectively route parcels so marked for sorting or other handling separate from other parcels unloaded from the trailer 202a.
After passing through the sort induction apparatus 214a, parcels are carried by a transport system 216a to a sorting system 218. The sorting system may be a circular system, as shown in
An automated unloading apparatus 204b is used to unload the trailer 202b, and a sort induction apparatus 214b is used to singulate, scan, and print parcels before they are carried away by a transport system 216b. The transport system 216b includes a diversion station 222, at which some parcels may be diverted from being carried to the sorting system 218 and, instead, routed directly to a secondary sorting system 224. Parcels in the sorting system 218 may also be diverted to the secondary sorting system 224 via outputs 228. The secondary sorting system 224 includes a plurality of automated or manual sorting stations that divert parcels to a corresponding plurality of outputs 226.
An automated unloading apparatus 204n is used to unload the trailer 202n, and a sort induction apparatus 214n is used to singulate, scan, and print parcels before they are carried away by a transport system 216n. The transport system 216n includes a diversion station 230, at which some parcels may be diverted from being carried to the sorting system 218 and, instead, routed to an alternative destination, such as another handling area 232 (not shown in
Sorting of parcels in the sorting system 218 and the secondary sorting system 224, as well as diversion of a parcel to a particular output 220 or 226, or by the diversion stations 222 or 230, may be performed under the control of, or based upon information received from, the data processing system 100. Such control and/or information may be based upon information scanned from the parcel by the scan apparatus 210, one or more indicia placed upon the parcel by the printing apparatus 212, or by further scanning or visual inspection of the parcel at one or more sorting stations of the sorting systems 218 or 224.
The scan apparatus 310 detects identifying indicia on the parcels and the printing apparatus 312 may print one or more additional indicia on the parcels for use in subsequent sorting or processing steps, based upon information in the indicia scanned by the scan apparatus 310. The scan apparatus 310 is configured to communicate information obtained from scanning the parcel to a parcel processing control system, such as data processing system 100. The printing apparatus 312 may receive information directly from the scan apparatus 310 and/or from the data processing system 100.
From the sort induction apparatus 314, unloaded parcels pass directly into a linear sorting system 318, wherein the parcels art diverted manually or by automated mechanisms to a plurality of outputs 320. Where earlier trailer unloading systems may have required simultaneous unloading from a plurality of trailers to provide an adequate flow of parcels to justify the cost of a sorting system, the automated unloading apparatus 304 produces a sufficiently high flow of parcels to supply the sorting system 318 from a single trailer. From the outputs 320, the sorted parcels proceed to further sorting or to delivery or other further transportation. Diversion of a parcel to a particular output 320 may be based upon information scanned from the parcel by the scan apparatus 310, indicia placed upon the parcel by the printing apparatus 312, or by further scanning or visual inspection of the parcel at one or more sorting stations.
Sorting of parcels in the sorting system 318 may be performed under the control of, or based upon information received from, the data processing system 100. Such control may be based upon information scanned from the parcel by the scan apparatus 310, one or more indicia placed upon the parcel by the printing apparatus 312, or by further scanning or visual inspection of the parcel at one or more sorting stations of the sorting system 318.
The bulk accumulation apparatus 408 consolidates and transports all parcels unloaded from the trailers 402a, 402b, through 402n to a single layer apparatus 410, which is configured to move any parcels that are positioned on top of other parcels so that all parcels are positioned directly on the conveyor belt. From the single layer apparatus 410, the parcels proceed through a singulation apparatus 412, which is configured to move any parcels that are positioned beside each other, relative to the motion of the parcels, to be positioned before and after each other along the direction of motion. From the singulation apparatus 412, the parcels pass through a scan apparatus 414, wherein they are scanned for indicia that identify the parcel and/or its intended destination. The scan apparatus 414 is configured to communicate information obtained from scanning the parcel to a parcel processing control system, such as data processing system 100. The parcels then pass through a printing apparatus 416, which is configured to print one or more further marks or other indicia on parcels, in response to information in the indicia scanned by the scan apparatus 414. The printing apparatus 416 may receive such information directly from the scan apparatus 414 and/or from the data processing system 100.
From the printing apparatus 416, parcels are transported by a conveyor mechanism 418. Diversion mechanisms 420, responsive to information in the indicia scanned by the scan apparatus 414 or to indicia printed on the parcels by the printing apparatus 416, divert some parcels to a sorting system 422. The sorting system 422 may sort parcels manually, automatically, or using a combination of manual and automatic techniques. Parcels may be routed from the sorting system 422 to outputs 424, for delivery, further sorting, further transportation, or other further processing. Parcels may be routed from the sorting system 422 via a conveyor mechanism 426 to a secondary sorting system 428, for further sorting. Other parcels in the conveyor mechanism 418 may be diverted by a diversion mechanism 432 to the secondary sorting system 428, bypassing the sorting system 422. Parcels not diverted by the diversion mechanisms 420 or 432 may be transported to a further processing system 434.
Sorting of parcels in the sorting system 422 and the secondary sorting system 428, as well as diversion of a parcel to a particular output 424 or 430, or by the diversion stations 420 or 432, may be performed under the control of, or based upon information received from, the data processing system 100. Such control and/or information may be based upon information scanned from the parcel by the scan apparatus 414, indicia placed upon the parcel by the printing apparatus 416, or by further scanning or visual inspection of the parcel at one or more sorting stations of the sorting systems 422 or 428.
Those skilled in the art will recognize that, for simplicity and clarity, the full structure and operation of all systems suitable for use with the present disclosure is not being depicted or described herein. Instead, only so much of the physical systems as is unique to the present disclosure or necessary for an understanding of the present disclosure is depicted and described. The remainder of the construction and operation of the systems disclosed herein may conform to any of the various current implementations and practices known in the art.
It is important to note that while the disclosure includes a description in the context of a fully functional system, those skilled in the art will appreciate that at least portions of the mechanism of the present disclosure are capable of being distributed in the form of a instructions contained within a machine-usable, computer-usable, or computer-readable medium in any of a variety of forms, and that the present disclosure applies equally regardless of the particular type of instruction or signal bearing medium or storage medium utilized to actually carry out the distribution. Examples of machine usable/readable or computer usable/readable mediums include: nonvolatile, hard-coded type mediums such as read only memories (ROMs) or erasable, electrically programmable read only memories (EEPROMs), and user-recordable type mediums such as floppy disks, hard disk drives and compact disk read only memories (CD-ROMs) or digital versatile disks (DVDs). In particular, computer readable mediums can include transitory and non-transitory mediums, unless otherwise limited in the claims appended hereto.
Although an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure has been described in detail, those skilled in the art will understand that various changes, substitutions, variations, and improvements disclosed herein may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure in its broadest form.
None of the description in the present application should be read as implying that any particular element, step, or function is an essential element which must be included in the claim scope: the scope of patented subject matter is defined only by the allowed claims. Moreover, none of these claims are intended to invoke paragraph six of 35 USC § unless the exact words “means for” are followed by a participle.
The present application is related to, and claims priority to, U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/331,851, filed May 6, 2010, which is hereby incorporated by reference into the present application as if fully set forth herein. The present application is also related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/091,583, filed Apr. 21, 2011, and U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/326,876, filed Apr. 22, 2010, both of which are hereby incorporated by reference into the present application as if fully set forth herein.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61331851 | May 2010 | US |
