A material handling system includes a very high speed linear sortation conveyor that receives articles at an operating speed of 650 to 700 feet per second (fps) and up to 100 fps with gapping as small as one inch. In one or more embodiments, a recirculation sortation conveyor receives articles that are not diverted by the linear sortation conveyor with dynamic capacity sufficient to handle a high speed shutdown of the linear sortation conveyor. The recirculation sortation conveyor is itself a very high speed linear sortation conveyor having a pusher pre-sort feature that can distribute received articles at different lateral positions on an endless conveyor to align with more than one recirculation sortation conveyors that may be operating at a slower operating speed. In an exemplary embodiment, the recirculation sortation conveyor has a divert section for diverting articles to a divert target on a lateral side.

A flow divider assembly for a sorting apparatus, comprising a flow divider (3), which is operative to separate first and second product streams or flows (F1, F2), wherein the flow divider (3) comprises a flexible separator element (11), which has an upper edge (12) which presents a dividing edge to the product flows and the position of which is adjustable by flexing the separator element (3).

An improved swing arm manipulator is provided for displacing objects on an object carrier surface of an object carrier. The swing arm manipulator includes a swing arm rotatable around a rotation axis transverse to the object carrier surface. The swing arm includes a hollow elongate body and at least one extension part. The at least one extension part has an at least substantially cylindrical portion with which it is rotatably arranged in a hollow inner space of the hollow elongate body and has an at least substantially wedge shaped portion connected thereto, that extends towards the object carrier surface at an angle with respect to a surface normal of the object carrier surface. The improved swing arm manipulator is better arranged to manipulate objects of various sizes, while mitigating the risk that objects get stuck and/or are damaged.

An adjustable capacity reservoir for processing rod-like elements for tobacco industry, having partitioned multiple chambers.

A method of processing objects using a programmable motion device is disclosed. The method includes the steps of providing an input conveyance system by which input bins of objects may be provided to a processing station that includes the programmable motion device that includes an end effector, perceiving at the processing station identifying indicia representative of an identity of a plurality of objects at an input area of the input conveyance system, grasping the an acquired object using the end effector, moving the acquired object toward an identified processing container using the programmable motion device, the identified processing container being associated with the identifying indicia and said identified processing container being provided as one of a plurality of processing containers at the processing station, and providing an output conveyance system in communication with the processing station, by which processing containers that contain processed objects may be provided.

A box handling system is disclosed for use in an object processing system. The box handling system includes a box tray including a recessed area for receiving a box, and the recessed area includes a plurality of floor and edge portions for receiving the box that contains objects to be processed.

In a case where an article (A) is advanced along an inclined transport direction (C) by use of an article transverse-pushing body (4) configured to move along a main transport direction (T) and to be movable in a width direction (W) perpendicular to the main transport direction (T), the article transverse-pushing body (4) is accelerated in the width direction (W) in a sorting region (B) and then inertially moved such that the article transverse-pushing body (4) thus moving inertially is brought into contact with the article (A).

A crop cart loading system for loading a crop. The crop cart loading system generally includes a hopper having a floor and a sidewall extending from the floor to an upper edge thereof. The sidewall defines a first end, a second end opposite the first end, and an interior space for accommodating a crop. A conveyor is mounted to the hopper and configured to receive a crop at one of the first and second ends, and to longitudinally translate the crop above the floor toward the other of the first and second ends.

An article transfer system including: a transfer device that transfers an article in one direction; a travel distance detecting unit that sequentially detects a distance the article transferred by the transfer device has traveled; an article sensing unit that senses passage of the article transferred by the transfer device; an image capturing unit that photographs the article, the image capturing unit being disposed downstream of the article sensing unit in a transfer direction of the transfer device; a position-and-orientation detecting unit that processes an image captured with the image capturing unit to extract the article and detect a position and an orientation of the article; and a removal unit that removes the article, which has been sensed with the article sensing unit but not extracted by the process performed in the position-and-orientation detecting unit, from the transfer device, the removal unit being disposed downstream of the image capturing unit.

The invention relates to device, method and packaging facility having a transport section (17) for feeding article arrangements (5) in a transport direction (TR) to a packaging module (18). The transport section (17) comprises a transfer plate (15), on which the articles (2) of the article arrangements (5) are movable in a sliding manner. Located above the transfer plate (15) are pushing devices (16) for moving the articles (2) on the transfer plate (15), with the pushing devices (16) being movable in transport direction (TR) at least in some areas. The transport section (17) furthermore comprises outer guide elements (20) and inner guide elements (21) disposed on the transfer plate (15), with the outer guide elements (20) laterally delimiting the transport section (17) and, with the inner guide elements (21) being readjustable by at least one readjustment mechanism that is disposed at least partly below the transfer plate (15).