A motorized drive roller conveyor includes an upstream zone and a downstream zone, with each zone having a drive roller, an idler roller that is driven by the drive roller, and a sensor. The upstream zone and the downstream zone are controlled by a card, which measures a gap between a first item on the conveyor and a second item on the conveyor by beginning a counter when a trailing edge of the first item passes the sensor of the upstream zone and stopping the counter when a leading edge of the second item passes the sensor of the upstream zone to generate a counter value. If the first item is stopped in the downstream zone, the card of the upstream zone causes the drive roller of the upstream zone to advance the second item into the downstream zone for a distance derived from the counter value before stopping the transportation of the second item.

Various embodiments described herein relate to controlling an accumulation conveyor that comprises at least a first zone that is upstream of a second zone and the second zone that is upstream of a third zone. A second control module associated with the second zone receives a third feedback signal, indicating that a third sensor is blocked, from a third control module associated with the third zone. The second control module sets a second drive assembly associated with the second zone to a disengaged state, and receives a first signal from a first control module associated with the first zone. The first signal indicates that one of a first article having an irregular boundary or a second article having a regular boundary exits from the first zone. The second control module controls the second drive assembly and a second brake assembly based on the indication by the first signal.

Various embodiments described herein generally relate to techniques for conveying articles on a conveyor system of a robotic material handling system in a material handling environment. In accordance with an embodiment, the robotic material handling system includes a front portion and a rearward conveyor. The front portion may be expandable to a first configuration and retractable to a second configuration. On detecting a jam on the front portion, the robotic material handling system may actuate expansion of the front portion to the first configuration, and attempt to dislodge the jammed articles by causing one or more of (i) separating the jammed articles by activating one or more of a plurality of zones of the front portion under the jammed articles, and/or (ii) activating one or more of the plurality of zones under the jammed articles in a reverse direction.

A method for automatically stacking packages of different sizes in layers on a support in a specified spatial arrangement so as to form a stack by determining the order and spatial position of the packages of different sizes in the stack to be formed in a computer-assisted manner, including by placing the individual packages in an order by a conveyor system, and transporting the packages to be loaded from the conveyor system to the pre-calculated spatial positions on the support or the stack being formed on the support using the handling means of a stacking device. The specified order and the specified spatial position of the packages are used to computationally check whether at least two packages following each other on a conveyor system path leading to the stacking device can be transported together to the pre-calculated spatial positions by the handling means.

A motorized drive roller conveyor includes an upstream zone and a downstream zone, with each zone having a drive roller, an idler roller that is driven by the drive roller, and a sensor. The upstream zone and the downstream zone are controlled by a card, which measures a gap between a first item on the conveyor and a second item on the conveyor by beginning a counter when a trailing edge of the first item passes the sensor of the upstream zone and stopping the counter when a leading edge of the second item passes the sensor of the upstream zone to generate a counter value. If the first item is stopped in the downstream zone, the card of the upstream zone causes the drive roller of the upstream zone to advance the second item into the downstream zone for a distance derived from the counter value before stopping the transportation of the second item.

A conveying facility with a drivable conveying member that forms a sheet-like main surface that faces the conveyed item and defines a conveying stretch. The conveying member includes at least one conveying element that forms at least a part of the main surface. The conveying member also includes rollers that, via roller holders, are rotatably mounted on the at least one conveying element about roller pivots and can selectively assume the state of a freewheel position, an arrested position or a drive position. The conveying facility also has at least one conveying container that lies on the conveying member in a connection-free manner, wherein the rollers project at least partly beyond the main surface of the conveying element so that the at least one conveying container lies on the rollers.

A roller including a roller body in a cylindrical form. The roller body comprises at least partially of a borosilicate glass material.

Embodiments include a parcel processing system and methods for operating the same. The parcel processing system includes a collector configured to receive a flow of parcels and a slug accumulation system configured to receive the flow of parcels and produce a normalized bulk flow of parcels. The parcel processing system also includes a bulk transport conveyor configured to receive the normalized bulk flow of parcels and a singulator configured to receive the normalized bulk flow of parcels from the bulk transport conveyor. The normalized bulk flow of parcels is a flow of parcels having an approximately constant parcel density traveling at a fixed speed.

Various embodiments described herein relate to controlling an accumulation conveyor that comprises at least a first zone that is upstream of a second zone and the second zone that is upstream of a third zone. A second control module associated with the second zone receives a third feedback signal, indicating that a third sensor is blocked, from a third control module associated with the third zone. The second control module sets a second drive assembly associated with the second zone to a disengaged state, and receives a first signal from a first control module associated with the first zone. The first signal indicates that one of a first article having an irregular boundary or a second article having a regular boundary exits from the first zone. The second control module controls the second drive assembly and a second brake assembly based on the indication by the first signal.

An article induction system for preparing a stream of articles, such as mail parcels, for processing employs a series of conveyors operating under control of a controller for feeding articles to an operator at a cull belt at an optimal paced rate. The article induction system includes a destacking section, a separation and alignment section, a buffer section and a culling section manned by an operator. A controller controls the speed of each component based on measurements provided by sensors so as to feed articles to the operator at a desired paced rate.