专利摘要:
The postal sorting machine comprises a sorting conveyor capable of transporting postal items (7) in series along sorting outlets (3) and a postal item feeding unit (6) comprising a magazine (6C) for storing postal items in bulk to be sorted and a robotic arm separator (6D) with a vision sensor (6F) capable of picking postal items one by one to be sorted in the magazine and to inject them into the sorting conveyor by arranging them in series with constant pitch. The magazine has a platform mounted on an elevator (11) which is operated to maintain at a certain distance from the set of postal objects relative to the vision sensor (6F).
公开号:FR3031047A1
申请号:FR1463303
申请日:2014-12-24
公开日:2016-07-01
发明作者:Bernoussi Hicham El
申请人:Solystic SAS;
IPC主号:
专利说明:

[0001] TECHNICAL FIELD The field of the invention is that of postal sorting. The invention relates more particularly to a postal sorting machine comprising a sorting conveyor capable of transporting postal objects in series along sorting outlets and a postal item supplying unit comprising a magazine for storing postal objects to be sorted. and a separator adapted to inject one by one the postal objects to be sorted from the magazine to the sorting conveyor 10, placing them in series with a constant pitch. BACKGROUND ART Bucket carousel sorting machines are already known for mechanized sorting of mixed mail including small format flat mail items and large format flat mail items. These machineable mailpieces may for example have dimensions in length from 140 to 400mm, in width from 90 to 300mm and in thickness from 0.5 to 32mm, a weight ranging from 10g to 2kg. These machinable flat mail items can be packaged in paper envelopes (open or closed), plastic wrapped and even packaged in a strapped bundle.
[0002] The spectrum of postal mail also includes small packets or packages whose dimensions, weight and packaging are very heterogeneous with values that may go beyond the values indicated above.
[0003] This type of heterogeneous postal objects today is not separated automatically. These small packages are now separated semi-manually to 3031047 2 away from flat homogeneous mail items which increases the cost of postal sorting. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The object of the invention is to propose a postal sorting machine capable of automatically sorting heterogeneous mail items of the type small parcels or packages and which have a general parallelepiped shape. Another object of the invention is to provide such a sorting machine for sorting at the same time in the sorting outlets flat homogeneous mail items and heterogeneous mail items such as small packets or parcels. Another object of the invention is also to provide such a postal sorting machine in which the congestion of feeding antennas flat homogeneous mail items and postal objects heterogeneous type small packets or packages remains low. The idea underlying the invention is to unload the heterogeneous postal objects of the type small packets or parcels arriving in the sorting center in bulk in a feed store of the sorting machine and to use as separator an arm robotic that comes to pick in the store one by one the heterogeneous postal objects with a pneumatic gripper. The robotic arm is assisted by a vision system observing the heap of heterogeneous objects stored in bulk in the store to detect the postal item to be separated from the postal item pile and to identify an uncoated gripping face of this postal item. to allow the gripper of the robotic arm to grasp by this gripping face the mailpiece in question.
[0004] More particularly, the subject of the invention is a postal sorting machine, comprising a sorting conveyor capable of transporting postal articles in series along sorting outlets and a post office supply unit comprising a magazine for storing postal objects to be sorted and a separator capable of injecting one by one the mailpieces to be sorted from the magazine to the sorting conveyor by arranging them in series with a constant pitch, characterized in that the separator comprises a robotic arm provided with a pneumatic gripper orientable in a three-dimensional space, a vision sensor capable of observing a pile of mail items stored in bulk in the store to produce image data comprising a certain postal item to be separated from the postal item pile , 15 and a control / command unit which, from said image data produced by the vision sensor, is able to identify an uncoated gripping face of said certain postal object for a gripping of this postal object by the gripper, said control / control unit being further arranged to control the robotic arm so as to pick up said certain postal object by said gripping face and inject it into the conveyor sorting, and in that said feed store comprises a storage platform of the heap 25 of postal items in bulk which is mounted on an elevator, and in that said control / command unit is arranged to control the elevator so as to keep the heap of postal items in bulk at a certain viewing distance from the vision sensor as the mailpieces are picked up by the robotic arm.
[0005] In this postal sorting machine, the sorting conveyor may comprise buckets adapted to carry each at least one postal item of the small package or parcel type and to circulate in a closed loop path over receptacles for exits. sorting, for example removable bins. The store in which the small packages or parcels are stored in bulk may constitute the input of a machine specific automatic feed antenna. Another automatic feeding antenna may be provided to receive flat flat mail items stacked on edge. This specific antenna may have an injection point of the heterogeneous mailpieces in the carousel cups which is separate from the injection point of the flat homogeneous mailpieces. With this arrangement, the flat homogeneous mail items and the heterogeneous mail items of small packets or parcels can be sorted into the same sort output receptacles of the machine by being laid flat in these sort output receptacles. The postal sorting machine according to the invention may also have the following features: the control / command unit may be further arranged to detect that the image data produced by the mink sensor are insufficient to identify a face in response to this detection, causing a jerk in advance / recoil of the magazine to change the spatial configuration of the pile of postal items in bulk. a flat conveying section is provided inclined with a lower side edge and an upper side edge which is higher than the lower side edge which is designed as a jogging edge, and the robotic arm can be designed to deposit individually each object separated from the bulk mailpiece stack in the inclined flat conveying section such that the object comes into gravitational jogging against the lower edge of the conveyor. the machine may comprise several juxtaposed magazines in each of which heterogeneous postal objects are stored in bulk, a plurality of robotic arms respectively associated with said magazines and several parallel inclined flat conveying sections which are fed with postal objects by said respective robotic arms of such whereby the mailpieces are arranged row-aligned on said first inclined flat conveying sections to be transferred by row of mailpieces to a second flat conveyance section in which they are serially arranged and spaced two by two at not constant. the postal objects aligned in rows can be transferred to the second flat conveying section by another pneumatic gripper. the sorting conveyor may comprise a flat conveyor for conveying postal articles spaced two or two apart at a constant pitch, a tilting plate carousel which is fed with postal articles by said flat conveyor and which feeds into objects. a bucket carousel which serves the outputs 30 sorting. An exemplary embodiment of the postal sorting machine according to the invention is described below and illustrated by the 3031047 6 drawings. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES FIG. 1 schematically illustrates in perspective a postal sorting machine according to the invention. FIG. 2 schematically illustrates in perspective an upstream part of an automatic feeding antenna for heterogeneous postal objects. FIG. 3 schematically illustrates in perspective a downstream portion of the feed antenna of FIG. 2. FIG. 4 illustrates in more detail the heterogeneous object feed antenna, the tray carousel and the feed conveyor. buckets.
[0006] Figure 5 is a flowchart illustrating a certain operation of the robotic arm control. DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS In FIG. 1, there is illustrated a postal sorting machine 1 according to the invention as a whole and comprising a bucket sorting carousel 2. The bucket sorting carousel 2 comprises buckets (not shown in Figure 1 but visible in Figure 4) which are adapted to each transport at least one postal item which is here within the scope of the invention a flat mail item or a small package or package. The carousel cups travel in a closed loop path over sorting containers 3 which here are removable bins in which the sorted objects are placed in a flat lay-up. FIG. 1 diagrammatically illustrates two feed antennas 4,5 which feed in parallel the cup carousel 2 into homogeneous flat mail items of small and / or large format as is known to the man of the job. These flat mail items may be for example letters, magazines or the like. In FIG. 1, the reference numeral 6 denotes a feed antenna specific to the carousel with buckets 2 in heterogeneous postal objects such as small packets or packages. The sorting machine 1 makes it possible to mix a stream of small packets with a stream of mails and thus optimize the costs of postal sorting. The feed antennas 4 and 5 each conventionally comprise a magazine in which the mailpieces are arranged in stack on edge, a destacker downstream of the magazine which depiles and serializes the mailpieces at a constant distance, a belt conveyor pinching for conveying serial mail items on constant distance song past a camera and then into an injector which injects each mail piece into a carousel cup. As is known, the camera forms a digital image of the face of each mail item having a distribution address and based on an OCR recognition of the distribution address in the image, a control unit of the machine determines the receptacle 3 in which the mail article is to be deposited by the bucket carousel. In FIG. 2, the specific supply antenna 6 has been illustrated in more detail in heterogeneous postal objects 7. This feed antenna 6 is adapted to automatically feed postal articles 7 into the bucket carousel 2. output rate of the postal objects of this feed antenna is controlled by the control unit 8 of the sorting machine. It comprises an inlet formed here by a kind of hopper 6A in which the postal objects 7 are poured in bulk. The loose objects 7 in the hopper 6A are brought here by a sloping belt conveyor 6B which forms the sole of the hopper 6A, in two magazines 6C. In each magazine 6C, the objects 7 are still stored in bulk as illustrated in FIG. 2. The feed antenna 6 further comprises a separator for the serialization of the objects 7, in the form of a robotic arm, in the In this case, two robotic arms 6D pick one by one objects 7 respectively in the two stores 6C. The supply antenna 6 further comprises here two flat conveyors 6E which are served as objects 7 respectively by the robotic arms 6D. More particularly, each flat belt conveyor 6E, for example, has at one upstream end an inclined flat conveying section with a lower side edge 9 and an upper side edge 10 which is higher than the lower side edge 9 and which is designed as a jogging shore.
[0007] Each robotic arm 6D is for example a six degree of freedom arm which is associated with a vision sensor 6F and which is provided with a pneumatic vacuum gripper in a three-dimensional space. The gripper may preferably be of variable geometry, that is to say comprise a central plate provided with several suction cups and at least two folded and foldable flaps on two opposite sides of this central plate and also each provided with several suction cups. The suction cups of the center plate and each flap are provided to be selectively controlled so that the grip surface of the gripper can correspond either to the surface of the central plate or to the surface of the central plate augmented by the surface of the central plate. a flap, or finally on the surface of the central plate increased by the surface of the two flaps. This gripping surface of the variable geometry gripper makes it possible to improve the taking of packets or packages having heterogeneous dimensions. The gripping surface on the packs or parcels is generally rectangular and with a gripping surface of the variable geometry gripper, it is possible to adapt the size of the grip surface of the gripper to that of the gripping surface of the package or parcel without overflowing it so as not to touch or damage other objects in the pile of objects during the picking by the robotic arm.
[0008] The feed antenna 6 also includes a second flat conveyor 6L on which the objects 7 are moved in series flat by being spaced in pairs with a constant pitch. The flat conveyor 6L is here perpendicular to the flat conveyors 6E.
[0009] As can be seen in FIG. 2, packages or packages 7 which are deposited by a robotic arm 6D on a track of the corresponding flat conveyor 6E are spaced two by two at a constant pitch. In practice, one or more images of the top of the heap of objects 7 in bulk in a magazine 6C are taken by the vision sensor 6F and image data A is transmitted to the unit 8, which detects the object 7 to separate from the heap of objects and identifies a gripping face on this object. The unit 8 determines the surface of this gripping face and controls at B and C one of the robotic arms 6D to adapt the geometry of the gripper to this gripping surface 5 and grip with the gripper this object 7 by the gripping face identified above. . The unit 8 synchronizes the movement of the robotic arm with the movement of the flat conveyor 6E so that the robotic arm places the objects 7 successively drawn into the magazine with a constant pitch between their front fronts. In the case of example, the two robotic arms 6D operate with the unit 8 and the vision sensor 6F to deposit the objects 7 on the two parallel tracks of the conveyor 6E in front alignment perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the conveyor 6E. According to the invention, each object 7 is placed on the inclined part of the conveyor 6E so as to be presented with its long length oriented in the longitudinal direction of the conveyor 6E and slightly above the lower edge of the conveyor constituting the jogging edge. so that the object comes, once released by the gripper, by gravitational jogging against the lower edge of the conveyor which allows to recover a precision dispersion of the robotic arm. This lower edge can be fixed or motorized. A pneumatic sucker system which is movably mounted forwards and backwards in the horizontal plane as illustrated by the arrow 11 is arranged at the end of the conveyor 6E for grasping here in pairs the objects 7 aligned in a row and placed on the flat conveyor 6L always spacing them with constant pitch. It is understood that a sorting machine according to the invention may comprise more than two tracks or flat conveyors 6E parallel and therefore as many robotic arms 6C to feed the flat conveyor 6L packages or packages spaced two by two to not constant if larger flows are sought. With reference to FIG. 5, according to one aspect of the sorting machine according to the invention, the unit 8 can be arranged to detect at 51 (FIG. 5) that the image data A produced at 50 (FIG. the mink sensor 6F is insufficient to identify a completely uncoated gripping surface on the package or package 7 at the top of the pile of objects in a magazine 6C and in response to this detection to cause at 52 (FIG. fast forward / reverse the magazine as illustrated by arrow 12 in FIG. 2 to change the spatial configuration of the bulk object stack in the magazine. One or more images of the bulk object stack in the magazine is or are formed by the vision sensor and new image data A is transmitted to the unit 8 which can unlock the subsequent process of picking up the image. 'a package or parcel in the store. If the unit 8 sufficiently detects a gripping face on the object to be separated from the pile of objects, it continues to 53 (FIG. 5) its control process of the robotic arm. According to another aspect of the sorting machine according to the invention, each magazine 6C comprises a storage platform for the stack of objects 7 in bulk which is mounted on an elevator such as a hydraulic piston able to raise or lower the platform as illustrated by the arrow 13. The unit 8 is arranged to control the elevator 3031047 12 so as to maintain the top of the heap of loose objects at a certain distance from the target of the vision sensor as the objects are drawn by the robotic arm.
[0010] This set distance corresponds to the distance between the focusing plane and the camera of the vision sensor 6F. The depth of field is chosen low so that in the image data A transmitted to the unit 8, the object 7 of the top of the heap of loose objects appears less blurred than the other objects of the heap of objects. loose objects which allows the unit 8 to more precisely identify a gripping face not covered for this object at the top of the pile of objects. In FIG. 3, the downstream portion of the feed antenna 6 is illustrated with the flat conveyor 6L which conveys postal articles 7 in a flat manner at a constant distance to a tilting tray 6M carousel which serves to inject postal items 7 in the cups of the cup carousel 2.
[0011] As shown in FIG. 3, an imaging system 6N is disposed in the path of the conveyor 6L to form two digital images respectively on two opposite sides of each mailpiece 7. From these two digital images, the The control unit may evaluate a delivery address for the mailpiece in question so as to direct that mailpiece into a corresponding sorting output bin. The tilting tray carousel 6M comprises 6P trays which are each tilting about a lateral rotation axis and which travel on a closed loop path over the buckets of the bucket conveyor 2. The trays of the carousel 6M are loaded each The mailpieces 7 arrive one by one on the trays of the conveyor 6M by a free end sloping of the flat conveyor 6L overlooking the carousel 6M.
[0012] As illustrated in FIG. 4, the tilting axis 6Q of the trays of the tray carousel is oriented transversely to the direction of circulation of the trays and the buckets of the bucket carousel have a large size (corresponding to the length of the mailpieces ) which is oriented transversely to the direction of circulation 21 of the buckets 20 so that each postal object 7 is transferred by sliding a tray to a bucket in which it is stored in a global manner on edge on its side of greater length . It should be noted that the trays of the carousel 6M move synchronously with the cups of the carousel 2. The postal objects 7 are thus injected by simple gravity into the cups 20 of the carousel 2. The injection point 20 of the objects 7 in the carousel 2 is upstream, in the direction 21, of the injection point of the mail items from the feed antennas 4 and 5. For example, the relative speed of the specific antenna 6 can be of a postal object 7 for six consecutive 25 cups of the carousel 2. At the end of the tilting movement, each tray is automatically raised and locked in a horizontal position by a ramp system. It goes without saying that the present invention can not be limited to the foregoing description of one of its embodiments, which may undergo some modifications without departing from the scope of the invention.
权利要求:
Claims (3)
[0001]
CLAIMS1 / Postal sorting machine, comprising a sorting conveyor capable of transporting mailpieces (7) in series along sorting outlets (3) and a feed unit (6) postal object comprising a magazine (6C) for storing mailpieces to be sorted and a separator capable of injecting one by one the mailpieces to be sorted from the magazine to the sorting conveyor by arranging them in series with a constant pitch, characterized in that the separator comprises a robotic arm (6D) provided with a pneumatic gripper in a three-dimensional space, a vision sensor (6F) adapted to observe a pile of mail items stored in bulk in the store to produce image data comprising a certain postal item to be separated the pile of postal items in bulk in the magazine, and a control / command unit (8) which, from said image data produced by the vision sensor, is able to identify an uncoated gripping face of said certain postal object for a gripping of this postal object by the gripper, said control unit / control being further arranged to control the robotic arm so as to pick said certain postal object by said gripping face and inject it into the conveyor of sorting, and in that said feed magazine comprises a storage platform of the heap of postal items in bulk which is mounted on an elevator (12), and in that said control / command unit is arranged to control the elevator so as to maintain the heap of postal items in bulk at a certain distance from the target of the vision sensor as and when stealing postal objects by the robotic arm.
[0002]
2 / postal sorting machine according to claim 1, characterized in that said control / control unit (8) is further arranged to drive the robotic arm so as to pick in the store with the gripper said certain postal item by said gripping face and injecting it into the sorting conveyor, and in that the control / command unit is further arranged to detect that the data produced by the mink sensor is insufficient to identify said certain postal item at separate from the heap of postal items in bulk and in response to this detection cause a shake by advance / retreat of the store to change the spatial configuration of the heap of postal items in bulk.
[0003]
3 / Postal sorting machine according to claim 1, characterized in that the sorting conveyor comprises at an upstream end a flat inclined conveying section with a lower lateral edge (9) and an upper lateral edge (10) which is higher than the lower side edge which is designed as a jogging edge, in that the robotic arm is adapted to individually inject each separate postal item from the pile of postal items in bulk, into the flat inclined conveying section of in such a way that this object comes in gravity jogging against the lower edge of the conveyor. 4 / sorting machine according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it 3031047 17 comprises several stores juxtaposed in each of which postal objects are stored in bulk, several robotic arms respectively associated audit stores and several conveyor sections in parallel flat which are fed with postal articles by said respective robotic arms in such a manner that the mailpieces are arranged aligned in a row on said first flat conveying sections to be transferred by row of mailpieces to a second section of conveying (6L) flat in which the postal objects are arranged in series and spaced two by two with a constant pitch. 5 / sorting machine according to claim 4, characterized in that the postal objects aligned in row are transferred to the second flat conveyor section by a pneumatic gripper (11). 6 / sorting machine according to one of the preceding claim 20, characterized in that the sorting conveyor comprises a flat conveyor (6L) for flat transport in series flat mail items (7) spaced two by two with a constant pitch , a tilting plate carousel (6M) which is fed with postal articles by said flat conveyor and which supplies postal objects with a bucket carousel (20) which serves the sorting outlets.
类似技术:
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同族专利:
公开号 | 公开日
FR3031047B1|2016-12-30|
WO2016102821A1|2016-06-30|
US20160263622A1|2016-09-15|
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法律状态:
2015-12-14| PLFP| Fee payment|Year of fee payment: 2 |
2016-07-01| PLSC| Search report ready|Effective date: 20160701 |
2016-12-12| PLFP| Fee payment|Year of fee payment: 3 |
2018-09-28| ST| Notification of lapse|Effective date: 20180831 |
优先权:
申请号 | 申请日 | 专利标题
FR1463303A|FR3031047B1|2014-12-24|2014-12-24|POSTAL SORTING MACHINE WITH POWER INPUT COMPRISING A ROBOTIC ARM AND A VERTICALLY MOBILE STORE|FR1463303A| FR3031047B1|2014-12-24|2014-12-24|POSTAL SORTING MACHINE WITH POWER INPUT COMPRISING A ROBOTIC ARM AND A VERTICALLY MOBILE STORE|
PCT/FR2015/053548| WO2016102821A1|2014-12-24|2015-12-16|Postal sorting machine with a feed inlet comprising a robotic arm and a vertically mobile magazine|
US15/165,198| US20160263622A1|2014-12-24|2016-05-26|Postal Sorting Machine With a Feed Inlet Having a Robotized Arm and a Vertically Movable Magazine|
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