A system and method are provided for automated engaging of a truck trailer at a loading dock. Sensors measure a distance and an angle of alignment between the incoming trailer and a wall of the loading dock. An outside lighting system guides a truck driver backing the trailer toward the dock door. A vehicle restraint system fixates the trailer within the loading dock in response to signals from the sensors. An overhead dock door opens once the trailer is successfully fixated by the vehicle restraint system. A dock leveler deploys after the overhead dock door opens. An inside dock light indicates to dock personnel that the trailer is ready to be serviced. Once servicing of the trailer is finished, an automated release of the trailer from the loading dock may be initiated by PLC communication.

A glass product transport apparatus is provided. The glass product transport apparatus includes a slotted element assembly configured to engage a narrowed portion of a glass product. A carriage assembly has a longitudinal slot configured to receive the slotted element assembly for longitudinal movement. An actuator is connected to the slotted element assembly and configured to move the slotted element assembly in a longitudinal direction. A rail structure is configured to support the carriage assembly. The slotted element assembly is configured to retain the glass product in the event power is removed from the actuator.

A robotic parking device is described. The device includes a number of stacks of containers as shown in FIG. 3, the stacks being positioned within a frame structure including uprights and a horizontal grid disposed above the stacks, the grid having substantially perpendicular rails on which load handling devices can run. Cars or vehicles are positioned in containers that are moved in to and out of the stacks by the robotic handling devices running on the grid. The cars are put in to the grid at entry points that may be positioned at points under the stacks.

A system and method for handling shipping containers is described. The container handling system includes a crane, the crane having crane load handling devices. The container handling system includes a conveyance device, the conveyance device including transversal load handling devices. The system provides storage and sortation for storing the containers in a series of stacks disposed beneath a grid, the grid having a series of load handling devices operable thereon. The crane load handling device removes a container from a ship, transports it to transversal load handling device operable on a conveyor. The container is moved on the conveyor to a transfer point where it is collected by a robotic load handling device for transport to the storage and sortation area.

A mobile radial stacker for stockpiling bulk material is provided that includes a stacker frame, a linear conveyor mounted to the frame, the conveyor having a rear portion and a front portion and being designed to carry bulk material from a lower position adjacent the rear portion to a raised position adjacent the front portion, and a pair of wheels mounted to the frame to facilitate movement of the stacker around a work site or to another work site. Also provided is a pivot pad/king pin apparatus mounted to the stacker including an integral king pin and pivot pad that may be displaced from a first position with the king pin facing downward for engagement with a tractor fifth wheel to a second position with the pivot pad facing downward for placement on the ground for radial conveying operations. Another way to describe the depicted embodiments is a pivot pad/king pin apparatus that may be used with a radial stacker. The apparatus may include a body with a king pin and pivot pad integrally mounted into it. The apparatus may be rotatable between a first position with the king pin facing downward for engagement with a tractor fifth wheel to a second position with the pivot pad facing downward for placement on the ground for radial conveying operations.

Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed for sensing RIG positioning and vehicle restraint movement. An example method includes determining a presence of a RIG and enabling a barrier to move to an operational position when the RIG is present.

A transportation system having a transportation space including destinations distributed in the transportation space, multiple independent automated vehicles configured for free roving through the transportation space to and between the destinations so that the vehicles are dynamically distributed through the transportation space, a control system communicably connected via a remote communication link to each of the vehicles and having a system controller that addresses each vehicle to different destinations, and the control system having a vehicle accountant controller separate and distinct from the system controller and configured to independently register a dynamic location of at least one of the vehicles, selected from the multiple vehicles in the transportation space, and command shutdown, via the remote communication link, to only the selected at least one vehicle at the registered location if the registered location corresponds to a predetermined location.

A safety switch mechanism for use on a conveyor system includes a lever adapted for pivotal attachment to a non-moving part of the conveyor system. A non-contact safety switch has a first switch part attached the lever and a second switch part fixed relative to the lever. The safety switch has an open position where the first switch part is angularly offset from the second switch part relative to a lever pivot axis and a closed position where the first switch part is aligned with the second switch part. A trigger block is adapted for attachment to a moving part of the conveyor system. The lever is configured as a pendulum and in an equilibrium position of the lever the safety switch is in the open position. The trigger block is configured to contact and pivot the lever moving the safety switch from the open position to the closed position.

A floor conveyor has a conveyed object support base portion supported on a conveying traveling body via a columnar support member that penetrates, in a vertical direction, a slit formed in a floor surface along a traveling path of the conveying traveling body. An auxiliary floor surface mechanism which narrows the width of the slit has protruding members protruding from the side of the slit to the center of the slit, where each of the protruding members includes a plate-shaped portion along a perpendicularly vertical direction and is held and biased by an elastic force in a protruding posture in which the protruding member protrudes to the center of the slit. When the protruding member contacts the columnar support member, the protruding member moves in the movement direction of the columnar support member against elasticity so as to allow the passage of the columnar support member.

An object handling system is described, the system having two substantially perpendicular sets of rails forming a grid above a workspace, the workspace having a plurality of stacked containers. The system includes a series of robotic load handling devices operating on the grid above the workspace, the load handling devices having a body mounted on wheels. The robotic devices can move around the grid under instruction from a computing device, the robotic devices being moved to a point on the grid above a stack of containers and then, using a lifting device, engage and lift a container from the stack. The container is then moved to a point where the objects in the container can be accessed. Modifications to the workspace and grid are described that allow vehicles and roll cages to be used to move stacks from the workspace to a point outside the workspace or from outside the workspace into the workspace.