A suspended tire manipulator for use by an operator in lifting a tire having a mounting aperture includes a first handle attached to a first proximal arm. The first proximal arm is connected to a first distal arm at an obtuse angle. The manipulator includes a rotary balancer pivotally mounted to the first distal arm. The rotary balancer provides a pivoting torque to the first distal arm in response to operator movements raising and lowering the manipulator via manual force applied at the handle. A vertical support has a lower end and an upper end. The lower end connects to the rotary balancer. The manipulator includes a pair of gripper shoes. The pair of gripper shoes are slidably mounted on a rail and move in opposite inboard and outboard directions on the rail.

A rotary apparatus or machine that takes or receives a barrel stack of mounted tires in the vertical position (i.e., barrel stacked), and rotates the stack as a whole to a horizontal position, where each unit or tire is an upright position. The tires can then be rolled off individually or in multiple units to be installed on the equipment being built, or transported from the tire holding area to the assembly floor or installation area.

A conveyor for transporting and elevating articles and a method and system for conveying articles up inclines is provided. The conveyor has a conveyor belt and a plurality of support elements extending outward from the article-conveying surface of the conveyor belt advancing upward along the incline. The conveyor may be positioned at an inclined angle relative to the horizontal ground, i.e., between about 5 and 85 or the conveyor can be substantially vertical, i.e., about 90 relative to the horizontal ground. The support elements prevent conveyed articles from sliding down the conveyor belt on the inclined conveyor and carry and hold articles on substantially vertical conveyors. The article-conveying surface of the conveyor belt may provide a low-friction retention surface to articles leaning away from the conveyor belt on the incline.

An automatic tire loader/unloader for stacking/unstacking tires in a trailer is disclosed. In one embodiment, a mobile base structure provides a support framework for a drive subassembly, conveyance subassembly, an industrial robot, a distance measurement subassembly, and a control subassembly. Under the operation of the control subassembly, tires advance through a powered transportation path to an industrial robot which places the tires within the trailer in a vertical stacking pattern or a rick-stacking pattern, for example. The control subassembly coordinates the selective articulated movement of the industrial robot and the activation of the drive subassembly based upon the distance measurement subassembly detecting objects, including tires, within a detection space, dimensions of the trailer provided to the control subassembly, and dimensions of the tires provided to the control subassembly.

A tire transport apparatus includes at least three arms each having an arm main body and a protrusion disposed to protrude outward at a lower part of the arm main body to lift the tire; an arm extension/retraction mechanism configured to move the at least three arms in a horizontal extension/retraction direction; a lift mechanism configured to raise and lower the at least three arms; at least three optical reflection sensors disposed on an outer side of a circle including distal ends of the protrusions when the at least three arms are above the tire and in a retracted state to detect an object below; and a controller configured to determine that one or more arms among the at least three arms are in an inappropriate position, if one or more optical reflection sensors among the at least three optical reflection sensors detect the tire.

A process for directing the movement of a robot (102) with a gripper (108) that picks a target tire (P*) from an arrangement of tires includes the following steps: providing a system (100) for picking one or more tires stored in the arrangement of tires, the robot forming part of this system; determining one or more parameters of the target tire in the arrangement of tires; determining the diameter of the target tire; determining the tire radius (R.sub.P) and the rim radius (R.sub.J) of the target tire; an approaching step whereby the robot approaches the target tire identified for picking; a picking step whereby the target tire is picked by the gripper; and extracting the target tire from the arrangement of tires in order to place it in a target location.

The present invention relates to a device for storing tires, particularly large tires, said tire storage device comprising a plurality of storage niches (10) and at least one elevator disposed in a front portion (31) of the device and engaging the plurality of storage niches (10), each storage niche (10) consisting of an inclined upper platform (II), a lower inclined platform (12), and a connecting platform (13) associating the upper platform (11) with the lower platform (12), the upper platform (11) comprising an inlet end of the tire (111) engaging the elevator and a second end (112) opposite the inlet end of the tire (III) engaging the connecting platform (13), the lower platform (12) comprising a first end (121) engaging the connecting platform and an outlet end of the tire (122) opposite the first end (121).

Disclosed is a transport device, an applicator and a method for transporting a tire component in a transport direction. The transport device includes at least three conveyors extending mutually parallel in the transport direction and side-by-side in a lateral direction perpendicular to the transport direction to form a combined conveying surface for conveying the tire component in the transport direction, wherein the at least three conveyors include an intermediate conveyor, a first side conveyor on a first side of the intermediate conveyor in the lateral direction and a second side conveyor on a second side of the intermediate conveyor in the lateral direction, opposite to the first side, wherein the intermediate conveyor, the first side conveyor and the second side conveyor are movable at different speeds with respect to each other in a direction parallel to the transport direction.

A rotary apparatus or machine that takes or receives a barrel stack of mounted tires in the vertical position (i.e., barrel stacked), and rotates the stack as a whole to a horizontal position, where each unit or tire is an upright position. The tires can then be rolled off individually or in multiple units to be installed on the equipment being built, or transported from the tire holding area to the assembly floor or installation area.

A conveyor for transporting and elevating articles and a method and system for conveying articles up inclines is provided. The conveyor has a conveyor belt and a plurality of support elements extending outward from the article-conveying surface of the conveyor belt advancing upward along the incline. The support elements prevent conveyed articles from sliding down the conveyor belt on the incline. The article-conveying surface of the conveyor belt may provide a low-friction retention surface to articles leaning away from the conveyor belt on the incline.