GB1281963A - Article sorting system - Google Patents

Abstract

1281963 Sorting postal mail; endless conveyers INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP 18 Feb 1970 [24 Feb 1969] 7722/70 Heading B8A An article sorting system comprises a first storage station including a plurality of article storage units 34, a feed system for sorting input articles into the storage units in accordance with addresses carried by the articles, a conveyer carrying storage units 37 arranged to receive articles selectively discharged from the units 34 of the first storage station and to transfer them to a second storage station which includes a plurality of article storage units 40 arranged to receive articles selectively discharged from the conveyer storage units, and a control unit 39 incorporating a data store. The latter is operable to assign dynamically and store, data relating addresses to the storage units, and to control input sorting and subsequent discharge of articles from the storage units thereby to determine the paths of articles through the system. The control unit 39 is arranged to keep running counts of articles in the storage units 37 and to control the discharge of articles therefrom in accordance with the counts. The control unit is arranged to cause discharge of articles from at least one of the storage units of the first storage station when more than a predetermined number thereof contain articles. In operation, articles of different categories are sorted into corresponding storage units 37 of the first storage station, and when a particular unit 37 is filled, a further unit 37 is assigned by the control unit 36, to the same category to receive further input articles in this category. As applied to the sorting of postal mail, the distribution of letters to the units 37 is controlled by a manually operated keyboard 31. Alternatively, the addresses may be read by magnetic or optical sensing means or by an optical character reader. The units 37 may have destinations, according to particular addresses, assigned to them by the control unit 36, but these may be altered in accordance with the inflow of letters to the keyboard 31. The contents of the conveyer storage units 37 are automatically tied into bundles at 42 and the bundles are carried round on to the lower run of the conveyer. Folding partitions of the units 37 are folded down by the action of a fixed guide 46 of the conveyer, the arrangement of the lower run of the conveyer being as shown in Fig. 4. The folding partitions are normally retained in a position in which they close their respective units 37, by the action of wheels 52 on the partitions which run on a rail 59. The latter has pivotable sections which may be displaced (as shown in Fig. 4) so as to allow a partition to fall down under gravity and so cause discharge of the mail into a designated unit 40.