Kiosks to distribute tangible storage media, such as Digital Video Disks (DVDs), provide a convenient way for consumers to access selected media. However, the widespread acceptance of these kiosks faces some challenges, due to the space occupied by the kiosk, the potential for accidentally ejecting the media within the kiosk (and possibly damaging the media) during media handling operations, and the time consumers must wait to receive media when the kiosk has only one POD (where the display, media access port, card reader, and other user interface devices are placed) that can be used to distribute the media.
In various embodiments, mechanisms and techniques for managing access to tangible storage media are presented. For example, in some embodiments, methods include receiving a request to access a selected one of a plurality of tangible storage media held in a plurality of substantially rectangular tangible storage media storage racks. Each of the racks may have first and second opposing sides substantially parallel to a media insertion axis of the rack in a horizontal plane. Additional activities include rotating a vertical spindle having a longitudinal axis substantially perpendicular to the horizontal plane and coupled to the plurality of racks with a corresponding plurality of arms having substantially equal length. Rotation can provide access to a gripper located to extract selected media along the media insertion axis. The racks are positioned so that a side axis coinciding with the first opposing side of a first one of the racks intersects the second opposing side of a second one of the racks, the first one of the racks and the second one of the racks comprising an adjacent pair of racks.
In some embodiments, an apparatus comprises a plurality of substantially rectangular tangible storage media storage racks, each of the racks having first and second opposing sides substantially parallel to a media insertion axis of the rack in a horizontal plane. The apparatus may further comprise a vertical spindle having a longitudinal axis substantially perpendicular to the horizontal plane and coupled to the plurality of racks with a corresponding plurality of arms having substantially equal length. A side axis coincident with the first opposing side of a first one of the racks intersects the second opposing side of a second one of the racks, with the first one of the racks and the second one of the racks comprising an adjacent pair of racks.
In some embodiments, a system comprises a server and multiple apparatus communicatively coupled to the server. Additional embodiments will be described in the Drawings and Detailed Description that follow.
For the purposes of this document, “tangible storage media” refers to both the media itself (e.g., a CD-ROM or DVD, some other type of optical disc, as well as flash drives and other nontransitory media), and the media 130 in combination with a physical transport case designed to carry, house, and protect the media 130 when the media 130 is dispensed to consumers.
Media insertion and extraction occur along the media insertion axis 204, which is disposed between first and second opposing sides 208, 212 of the rack 140 accessible to the gripper 120. In some embodiments, the media insertion axis 204 is disposed approximately equidistant from the first and second opposing sides 208, 212. Thus, the gripper 120 moves in the horizontal plane 218, along the media insertion axis 204. As will be shown in
To reduce the amount of floor space occupied by the apparatus 200, it is useful to reduce the distances A and B shown in the figure. The can be accomplished by arranging the racks 140 so as to reduce the size of the carousel 216 (combination of racks 140 and spindle 222) in a unique manner. The reduction in carousel size results in a commensurate reduction in the length of the arms 250 that attach the spindle 222 to the racks 140.
In some embodiments, as shown in
For the purposes of this document, elements that are “substantially equal” have the same measurement in at least one direction, within about 5% of each other. For example, three arms may be substantially equal in length if their relative lengths measure 0.95, 0.98, and 1.00. “Substantially parallel” or “substantially perpendicular” means being within about two degrees of being perfectly parallel or perfectly perpendicular, respectively, out of an included angle between lines, axes, and/or line segments. For example, two axes are substantially parallel if the angle included between them is plus or minus two degrees. Two axes are substantially perpendicular if the angle included between them is 92 degrees, or 88 degrees.
The arrangement 304 of four racks 140 provides four columns of media. For increased capacity, more racks 140 may be used.
For example, arrangement 306 shows eight racks 140 arranged about the spindle 222. Each of the racks 140 in this arrangement 306 has been arbitrarily assigned a size of Width=1 unit, and Length=2 units. In this case, when the spindle 222 rotates, the axis of centrifugal force 308 does not coincide with the media insertion axis 204. Given their proximity to the spindle 222, if the racks 140 in arrangement 306 were positioned in the same way as the racks 140 of arrangement 304 (where the insertion axis 204 is perpendicular to the axis of centrifugal force 308), there would be insufficient room for a gripper 120 to access the media, because adjacent racks 140 would interfere.
As shown in arrangement 306, the X and Y axes define the horizontal plane 218. The X axis is tangent to a first circle 332 defined by the outer periphery of the racks 140. The Y axis is perpendicular to the X axis, and intersects the longitudinal axis 314 of the spindle 222.
In arrangement 306, the grippers 120 are horizontally offset along the X axis by a distance H, from an origin or zero point defined by the center of the spindle 222 (i.e, the longitudinal axis 314), which lies on the Y axis in the horizontal plane 218. In some embodiments, the Y axis is parallel to the media insertion axis 204 and the centerline 328 of the gripper 120 when the gripper 120 is positioned to access tangible storage media that is held in the rack 140. In this position, the centerline 328 of the gripper 120 is substantially coincident with the media insertion axis 204.
In this orientation, in a first example, the centerline 328 of the gripper 120 intersects the first circle 332 at two points, but does not intersect a second circle 334 defined by the inner periphery of the racks 140 (shown in arrangement 306). In a second example, the centerline 328 of the gripper 120 intersects both the first circle 332 and the second circle 334 at two points. In a third example, the centerline 328 of the gripper 120 also intersects both the first circle 332 and the second circle 334 at two points. However, the centerline 328 of the gripper 120 does not intersect a third circle 336, defined by a radius that is approximately 50% of the length of the radius R of the second circle 334.
Referring now to
As shown in arrangement 306, the length of the arm 250 is a function of the relative width of the rack (1.00) and the angle α (shown as 50 degrees), where the angle α is the included angle between the axis of centrifugal force (here, along radius R) and the media insertion axis 204. In many embodiments the angle α is between about 45 degrees and about 60 degrees. In some embodiments the angle α is between about 45 degrees and about 75 degrees.
The diameter of the first circle 332 is a function of the length of the arm 250 (which is dependent on the width of the rack (set here to a relative value of 1.00), and the angle α). The length of arm 250 is also dependent on how much space the gripper 120 uses in the horizontal direction. This is because, although the gripper 120 does not move in the horizontal direction (i.e., along the X axis), its width during the activity of accessing media in a particular rack 140 may interfere with adjacent racks 140 if they are placed too close to the spindle 222. In most embodiments, the racks 140 are disposed approximately equally about the circle 332 at an angular separation distance of about 360 degrees divided by the number of racks 140. Thus, with eight racks 140, as shown in arrangement 306, the angular displacement of the racks 140 about the circle 332 is about 45 degrees.
The arrangements 300, 306, 370 illustrate how tangible storage media 130 can be more easily retained in the racks 140 during rotation of the spindle 222. The more closely the angle α approximates 90 degrees, the lesser will be the centrifugal force to expel the media 130 from the racks 140.
Thus, when each POD 110 is associated with a gripper, three consumers may access the apparatus 600 at the same time. As the racks rotate about the spindle, each gripper can be positioned to a pre-selected position along a track in the (vertical) Z axis at substantially the same time. That is, when the rack rotates, all grippers can simultaneously pre-position themselves in the vertical direction. Once the rack stops rotating, the grippers can move to extract the media in a horizontal direction. The kiosk may be programmed to provide variation in media titles for each rack column, so that the amount of rack rotation used to access a selected title will be reduced. In this way, the rack rotates only when the media title selected is not found among the titles in the rack currently facing the gripper for a particular POD (e.g., none of the 120 DVDs in rack column match a title selected by the consumer). Other advantages will become apparent as the various embodiments are now described in detail.
Referring now to
For example, and apparatus 880 may comprise a plurality of substantially rectangular tangible storage media storage racks 140′, 140″, each of the racks having first 208′, 208″ and second 212′, 212″ opposing sides, respectively, substantially parallel to a media insertion axis 204 of the rack 140 in a horizontal plane 218. “Substantially rectangular” with respect to a rack 140 means opposing sides of a rack 140 are substantially parallel to each other, and each of the opposing sides are substantially perpendicular to adjacent sides of the same rack.
The apparatus 880 may further comprise a vertical spindle 222 having a longitudinal axis 314 substantially perpendicular to the horizontal plane 218 and coupled to the plurality of racks 140 with a corresponding plurality of arms 250 having substantially equal length.
In some embodiments, an axis 390 coincident with the first opposing side 208′ of a first one of the racks 140′ intersects the second opposing side 212″ of a second one of the racks 140″, where the first one of the racks 140′ and the second one of the racks 140″ comprise an adjacent pair of racks within the carousel 216.
The racks 140 can be configured to hold rectangular media cases, well-known to those of ordinary skill in the art and shown in U.S. Pat. No. 7,774,233, assigned to the same assignee as this disclosure, and incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Thus, the apparatus 880 may have racks 140 that are configured to hold multiple ones of tangible storage media 130 housed in substantially similar individual rectangular transport cases.
To help retain the media 130 in the racks 140, the media insertion axis 204 and the axis of centrifugal force 308 are normally not aligned when then spindle 222 rotates. Thus, the axis of centrifugal force 308 defined by rotation of the vertical spindle 222 and the horizontal plane 218 is not collinear with the media insertion axis 204.
The racks 140 may be rigidly attached to the arms 250. Thus, in some embodiments, each one of the racks 140 is rigidly attached to a corresponding one of the arms 250. When rigid attachment is used, the racks 140 maintain a fixed orientation with respect to each other and to the spindle 222, as well as to the axis of centrifugal force 308, during media handling operations.
The apparatus 880 may include multiple grippers 120 to extract or insert the media into the racks 140. Thus, the apparatus 880 may comprise multiple grippers 120 having a travel direction (e.g., the Z axis) substantially parallel to the longitudinal axis 314 of the spindle 222, wherein the grippers 120 are configured to grasp individual ones of tangible storage media 130 held in the racks 140.
It is noted that the grippers 120 may form part of a transfer system to transfer media 130 between the racks 140 and another mechanism (a hand-off or transfer location on the shelf and/or a second gripper/robot, as shown in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2009/0276085, assigned to the same assignee as this disclosure, and incorporated herein by reference in its entirety) to a discharge chute and/or to a port that provides the consumer with physical access to the media 130, as is well-known to those of ordinary skill in the art. Other mechanisms may be used to transfer the media 130 from the gripper 120 to a physical access port on the face of a kiosk, for example. In some embodiments, the grippers 120 transfer the media 130 directly from the racks 140 to a physical access port 658 forming part of a POD 110.
Multiple grippers 120 can travel in the vertical direction (i.e., Z axis) substantially simultaneously with each other, and while the spindle 222 is rotating. Thus, each of the grippers 120, when retracted (e.g., moved as far away from the carousel 216 as possible, to provide the maximum rotational freedom for the carousel 216), can move in the travel direction (e.g., Z axis) at substantially the same time, in conjunction with continuous rotation of the spindle 222 about the longitudinal axis 314. For the purposes of this document, “substantially the same time” means at least one gripper 120 can move in the vertical direction (Z axis) at the same time as another gripper 120 is moving in the vertical direction, and that both grippers 120 can move in the vertical direction at the same time the carousel 216 is rotating, when the grippers are retracted.
Each gripper 120 may be associated with a user interface station, such as a POD 110, or any one or more components of a POD 110. Thus, an apparatus 880 may comprise multiple user interface stations, wherein each one of the user interface stations is operable to control one of the grippers 120 to grasp individual ones of the tangible storage media 130 when operational power is applied to the user interface stations and the grippers 120.
The user interface stations may be associated with media access portals. Thus, the apparatus 880 may comprise multiple access doors 652 attached to a housing 694 surrounding the racks 140, wherein each one of the access doors 652 corresponds to one of the grippers 120 and provides a port 658 with physical access to individual ones of the tangible storage media 130 that have been extracted by a corresponding one of the grippers 120.
The racks 140 may be arranged so that only rotation of the spindle 222 is needed to give grippers 120 access to the media 130, and the grippers 120 may have substantially simultaneous access once rotation is complete. Thus, in some embodiments, all of the grippers 120 can be located to substantially simultaneously grasp individual ones of tangible storage media 130 held in the racks 140 facing individual ones of the grippers 120, when the spindle 222 is not rotating.
The racks 140 may be disposed such that adjacent racks 140′, 140″ have a fixed angular relationship around the spindle 222. Thus, in some embodiments, each of the racks 140 is fixedly spaced apart from adjacent racks 140 by approximately the same distance in the horizontal plane 218 around the longitudinal axis 314, so that the racks 140 maintain a fixed physical relationship in space, with each other and the spindle 222, as the spindle 222 rotates.
The apparatus 880 may comprise multiple user interface stations, wherein each station can control rotation of the spindle 222, and one gripper 120. Thus, the apparatus 880 may comprise multiple user interface stations, wherein each one of the user interface stations is operable to control rotation of the vertical spindle 222 and a single gripper 120 to grasp individual ones of the tangible storage media 130 stored in the racks 140 when operational power is applied to the user interface stations and the grippers 120.
The apparatus 880 may include a transmission module 844 to transmit inventory status of the media 130 held within the apparatus 880 to another location, such as a server. Thus, the apparatus 880 may comprise a transmission module 844, including a wireless transmission module, to transmit inventory status to a server, the inventory status identifying tangible storage media 130 retained in the racks 140, and/or removed from, or placed into the racks 140 by the grippers 120.
The apparatus 880 may comprise a multiple-port kiosk. Thus, the apparatus 880 may be housed in a kiosk housing 694 configured to provide physical access via multiple ports 658 to selected tangible storage media 130 held in the racks 140 and dispensed in return for monetary consideration. Still further embodiments may be realized.
For example, a system 800 may comprise one or more processing nodes 802, one or more processors 820, multiple memories 822, multiple apparatus 880, and/or a network 816. The processing nodes 802 may comprise a client, a server, or some other networked processing node. The memories 822 may include instructions 824 and data 826 (e.g., inventory status) to be operated on by the processor 820. The processors 820 and memories 822 may be included in a processing element 888, which may comprise a node 802, a motherboard, a printed circuit card coupled to a backplane, etc.
The processing nodes 802 may comprise physical machines or virtual machines, or a mixture of both. The nodes 802 may also comprise networked entities, such as servers and/or clients. In some implementations, the operations described previously can occur entirely within a single node 802. The nodes 802 may thus comprise any one or more components of the apparatus 880.
Thus, in some embodiments, the system 800 may comprise multiple instances of the apparatus 880. The system 800 might also comprise a cluster of nodes 802, including physical and virtual nodes.
The nodes 802 may exist as a device embedded within another structure (e.g., as an embedded device), or as a regular desktop or laptop computer that includes a terminal to show the activities conducted while the node 802 is active.
The apparatus 880 and system 800 may be implemented in a machine-accessible and readable medium that is operational over one or more networks 816. The networks 816 may be wired, wireless, or a combination of wired and wireless. The apparatus 880 and system 800 can be used to implement, among other things, the processing associated with the methods 911 of
For example, a system 800 may comprise a server (e.g., node 802) and multiple apparatus 880 communicatively coupled to the server, each of the apparatus comprising one or more of the elements shown in
Thus, a method 911 of managing access to tangible storage media may begin at block 921 with receiving a request to access a selected one of a plurality of tangible storage media held in a plurality of substantially rectangular tangible storage media storage racks, each of the racks having first and second opposing sides substantially parallel to a media insertion axis of the rack in a horizontal plane. If desired, the activity at block 921 can include waiting until one or more requests to access media are received before proceeding to block 925.
The method 911 may continue on to block 925 with rotating a vertical spindle having a longitudinal axis substantially perpendicular to the horizontal plane and coupled to the plurality of racks with a corresponding plurality of arms having substantially equal length. The rotation is used to provide access to one or more grippers located to extract selected media along respective media insertion axes. The racks may be oriented as described previously, with respect to
In most embodiments, the generation of centrifugal force does not coincide with the media insertion axis, helping to prevent media cases from being thrown out of their holding racks as the carousel rotates. Thus, the activity at block 925 may comprise generating centrifugal force on the tangible storage media along a force axis, the force axis not being parallel to the media insertion axis in the horizontal plane.
The spindle may be rotated in increments of a circle to provide access to adjacent racks. Thus, the activity at block 925 may comprise rotating the vertical spindle about the longitudinal axis about 360 degrees divided by a number of the racks, to index the spindle from a first location providing tangible storage medium access to the gripper at the first one of the racks, to a second location providing tangible storage medium access to the gripper at the second one of the racks.
Grippers may move prior to movement of the spindle, at the same time the spindle moves, or after the spindle has stopped moving. In any case, the method 911 may include checking to determine whether gripper access has been provided, so that at least one of the grippers has access to a rack containing the selected tangible storage media at block 929. If access is not provided, the method 911 may include waiting at block 933 until access is provided by continued rotation of the spindle at block 925.
At some point during the process of gaining access to the selected tangible storage media, one or more grippers will be moved to a location directly opposite the location in the rack in which the selected medium resides. Grippers can be limited to two directions of travel in some embodiments. Thus, the method 911 may comprise locating the gripper to extract the selected one of the media at block 937 by moving the gripper in no more than two directions, which may be substantially orthogonal. For the purposes of this document, “substantially orthogonal” means that the directions are within 5 degrees of perpendicularity.
The gripper directions of travel may include the media insertion axis, and the vertical direction. Thus, a first one of the two directions may comprise the media insertion axis, and a second one of the two directions may comprise the travel axis (e.g., the Z axis) of the gripper that is substantially parallel to the longitudinal axis of the spindle. The travel axis may be defined by a vertical track to which the gripper is mounted. Once the gripper is located opposite the medium that has been selected, via rotation of the spindle and travel in the vertical (Z axis) direction, the method 911 may continue on to block 941 with advancing the gripper to access the selected one of the media.
After grasping the selected medium, the gripper may be retracted and operated to dispense the medium at block 945. The media may be dispensed to the consumer via a physical access port comprising part of a POD, and/or an access door of a kiosk.
The methods described herein do not have to be executed in the order described, or in any particular order. Moreover, various activities described with respect to the methods identified herein can be executed in repetitive, serial, or parallel fashion. The individual activities of the methods shown in
For example,
One of ordinary skill in the art will further understand the various programming languages that may be employed to create one or more software programs designed to implement and perform the methods disclosed herein. The programs may be structured in an object-orientated format using an object-oriented language such as Java or C++. Alternatively, the programs can be structured in a procedure-orientated format using a procedural language, such as assembly or C. The software components may communicate using any of a number of mechanisms well known to those of ordinary skill in the art, such as application program interfaces or interprocess communication techniques, including remote procedure calls. The teachings of various embodiments are not limited to any particular programming language or environment. Thus, other embodiments may be realized.
For example, an article 1000 of manufacture, such as a computer, a memory system, a magnetic or optical disk, some other storage device, and/or any type of electronic device or system may include one or more processors 1004 coupled to a machine-readable medium 1008 such as a memory (e.g., removable storage media, as well as any memory including an electrical, optical, or electromagnetic conductor) having instructions 1012 stored thereon (e.g., computer program instructions), which when executed by the one or more processors 1004 result in the machine 1002 performing any of the actions described with respect to the methods, apparatus, and systems disclosed above.
The machine 1002 may take the form of a specific computer system having a processor 1004 coupled to a number of components directly, and/or using a bus 1016. Thus, the machine 1002 may be similar to or identical to the apparatus or systems shown in
Turning now to
A network interface device 1040 to couple the processor 1004 and other components to a network 1044 may also be coupled to the bus 1016. The instructions 1012 may be transmitted or received over the network 1044 via the network interface device 1040 utilizing any one of a number of well-known transfer protocols (e.g., HyperText Transfer Protocol). Any of these elements coupled to the bus 1016 may be absent, present singly, or present in plural numbers, depending on the specific embodiment to be realized.
The processor 1004, the memories 1020, 1024, and the storage device 1006 may each include instructions 1012 which, when executed, cause the machine 1002 to perform any one or more of the methods described herein. In some embodiments, the machine 1002 operates as a standalone device or may be connected (e.g., networked) to other machines. In a networked environment, the machine 1002 may operate in the capacity of a server or a client machine in server-client network environment, or as a peer machine in a peer-to-peer (or distributed) network environment.
The machine 1002 may comprise a personal computer (PC), a tablet PC, a set-top box (STB), a personal digital assistant (PDA), a cellular telephone, a web appliance, a network router, switch or bridge, server, client, or any specific machine capable of executing a set of instructions (sequential or otherwise) that direct actions to be taken by that machine to implement the methods and functions described herein. Further, while only a single machine 1002 is illustrated, the term “machine” shall also be taken to include any collection of machines that individually or jointly execute a set (or multiple sets) of instructions to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein.
While the machine-readable medium 1008 is shown as a single medium, the term “machine-readable medium” should be taken to include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database), and/or associated caches and servers, and or a variety of storage media, such as the registers of the processor 1004, memories 1020, 1024, and the storage device 1006 that store the one or more sets of instructions 1012. The term “machine-readable medium” shall also be taken to include any medium that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying a set of instructions for execution by the machine and that cause the machine 1002 to perform any one or more of the methodologies of the present invention, or that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying data structures utilized by or associated with such a set of instructions. The terms “machine-readable medium” or “computer-readable medium” shall accordingly be taken to include tangible media, such as solid-state memories and optical and magnetic media.
Various embodiments may be implemented as a stand-alone application (e.g., without any network capabilities), a client-server application or a peer-to-peer (or distributed) application. Embodiments may also, for example, be deployed by Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), an Application Service Provider (ASP), or utility computing providers, in addition to being sold or licensed via traditional channels.
Implementing the apparatus, systems, and methods described herein may operate to provide new options for managing access to tangible storage media, such as optical discs dispensed via kiosks. Enhanced dispensing efficiency and increased consumer satisfaction may result.
This Detailed Description is illustrative, and not restrictive. Many other embodiments will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art upon reviewing this disclosure. The scope of embodiments should therefore be determined with reference to the appended claims, along with the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.
The Abstract of the Disclosure is provided to comply with 37 C.F.R. §1.72(b) and will allow the reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims.
In this Detailed Description of various embodiments, a number of features are grouped together in a single embodiment for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as an implication that the claimed embodiments have more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus the following claims are hereby incorporated into the Detailed Description, with each claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment.