The present disclosure provides systems, methods and assemblies comprising one or more tapered feed rolls. Tapered feed rolls may be used to change the rate and direction of workpiece travel along a processing line while retaining the workpieces in sequential order. Routing workpiece flow with tapered feed rolls may allow the workpieces to be tracked along one or more processing lines, and may reduce the operational space required for workpiece processing.

We disclose a roller guard with discharge for friction-driven sweep conveyors. This disclosure limits the introduction of particulate matter into the interface between a driven roller and an inner surface of a continuous conveyor belt. The roller guard assembly is mounted between an upper belt portion and a lower belt portion near the drive roller and has a retaining wall member oriented at an angle that is neither parallel with nor at a right angle to the longitudinal axis of the belt and at such an angle that particulates carried on the inner surface of the lower belt portion are directed toward the discharge aperture in the first sidewall.

A winch drum tension isolation system includes a winch drum including an outwardly extending flange, the flange including a plurality of holes spaced along the flange. The winch drum tension isolation system also includes a locking mechanism positioned proximate the winch drum and including a locking member engageable with the flange. The locking member is movable between a first position, in which the locking member is received in one of the plurality of holes to prevent rotation of the winch drum, and a second position, in which the locking member is spaced apart from the flange to permit rotation of the winch drum.

A cargo management system is provided comprising a slide bushing supported cargo shuttle, an actuator coupled to a bushing slide plate; an aft shuttle drive belt coupled to the slide bushing supported cargo shuttle; and a forward shuttle drive belt coupled to the slide bushing supported cargo shuttle. Also disclosed is a slide bushing supported cargo shuttle comprising a housing, a bushing slide plate extendable from the housing via an actuator and a top surface of the bushing supported cargo shuttle and a power drive unit coupled to the top surface.

A substrate support includes a drum, a first surface carried by the drum, and a second surface carried by the drum opposite and oblique to the first surface and a wedging member. The wedging member is sandwiched between the first surface and the second surface and is resiliently biased in a wedging direction.

A substrate support includes a drum, a first surface carried by the drum, and a second surface carried by the drum opposite and oblique to the first surface and a wedging member. The wedging member is sandwiched between the first surface and the second surface and is resiliently biased in a wedging direction.

This disclosure pertains to weighing a physical item while it is moving in a servo-driven conveyor system for e-commerce, logistics, manufacturing and other applications. The introduction of an unknown mass to an electro-mechanical feedback or filter network controlling a conveyance system will modify the steady state behavior of that system in such a way that measuring the phase or frequency shift of an input signal or oscillation will enable us to infer the magnitude of that mass.

This disclosure pertains to weighing a physical item while it is moving in a servo-driven conveyor system for e-commerce, logistics, manufacturing and other applications. The introduction of an unknown mass to an electro-mechanical feedback or filter network controlling a conveyance system will modify the steady state behavior of that system in such a way that measuring the phase or frequency shift of an input signal or oscillation will enable us to infer the magnitude of that mass.

A winch drum tension isolation system includes a winch drum including an outwardly extending flange, the flange including a plurality of holes spaced along the flange. The winch drum tension isolation system also includes a locking mechanism positioned proximate the winch drum and including a locking member engageable with the flange. The locking member is movable between a first position, in which the locking member is received in one of the plurality of holes to prevent rotation of the winch drum, and a second position, in which the locking member is spaced apart from the flange to permit rotation of the winch drum.

Described herein are an automated roller module, a sortation system including the module, and methods of controlling the module and system. The module includes multiple pucks each including a roller whose rotation about a driving axis within an upper plane and rotation about a swivel axis normal to the upper plane are each independently and dynamically controllable. The module is thereby configured to dynamically create and control various conveyance vector fields formed by the plurality of rollers. The system is thereby configured to dynamically control items in a conveyance flow; and the method may include, but is not limited to: shifting bulk flow items into a single flow, diverting item(s) in a new direction, directing item(s) into and/or out of a flow, changing the position, orientation, and/or spacing of item(s), separating one flow of items into multiple flows, and merging items from multiple flows into a single flow.