A food patty aligning and separating apparatus with a conveyor belt having horizontal cleats extending through a hopper beneath patties. Dividers extend longitudinally through the hopper to form lanes. The conveyor belt's cleats urge patties along lanes up a vertical span of the conveyor, thereby aligning the patties horizontally in a line. The patties pass over a peak and slide down a curved plate to distance the aligned group of patties from a next upstream group of patties. Guide members are spaced from the conveyor belt on hopper side to shear combined patties or pivot outward and cause combined patties to roll back into the hopper.

A method is disclosed for varying a spatial arrangement of randomly arranged, stacked or piled products, particularly to rearrange the products in a way that makes automated handling thereof possible. The method relies on a plurality of subsequent conveyors extending between a product input and a product output, wherein at least one of a conveyor speed a conveyor direction and a conveyor height of a conveyor of the plurality is offset from, respectively, the conveyor speed the conveyor direction, and the conveyor height of a subsequent conveyor in the plurality.

Disclosed herein are an automatic infeed tipper and an apparatus and method for controlling the automatic infeed tipper. The apparatus for controlling an automatic infeed tipper includes an article infeed control unit for allowing a pallet loaded with multiple articles to be installed on the tipper and controlling an angle of the tipper so that the articles loaded onto the pallet are fed into a conveyor unit, and a conveyor control unit for sequentially driving a transport conveyor belt and a plurality of tipper-use conveyor belts, which are provided in the conveyor unit, so as to disperse the articles fed into the conveyor unit.

A product flow regulator for temporary storage of products includes a frame, a conveying mechanism, and product carrier gondolas, which are conveyed with products from a product inlet area to a product outlet area and back empty. The frame includes a stationary guide track, along which the product carrier gondolas circulate self-controlled. The gondolas includes a drive mechanism and electrical control devices, which enable individual independent circulation.

A conveyor system for luggage or parcel items comprises an item conveyor for conveying the items and an aligner for aligning the items, the aligner comprising alignment means, such as tilted or slanted belts capable of changing an initial orientation of an item to a subsequent orientation of the item while the item is being conveyed along a general conveying direction of the aligner. A control system is provided for controlling the first and second conveyor elements which are arranged alongside each other and capable of simultaneously engaging an item engaging surface of the item, and individually controllable by the control system to convey at individual speeds to effect rotation of the item around an upright axis.

The problem of singulating oblong articles (1a, 1b, 1c, 2a, 2b) that are unloaded in an arbitrary orientation onto a conveyor has been solved in that the conveying trough (4) is divided into a central, lower part (5) and surrounding upwards-and-outwards extending parts (6, 7), whereby the central part (5) vibrates with a longitudinal amplitude that is higher than that of the upwards-and-outwards extending parts (6, 7) at the same frequency.

An article supply device has: a transport part that transports transported objects, and a movable block. The movable block is provided with a storage part that can store one of the transported objects in a reception position that communicates with a downstream end of the transport part. The movable block is capable of reciprocal movement in a direction that intersects the reception direction of the transported object. At one end of the reciprocal movement, the storage part is in the reception position. At the other end of the reciprocal movement, the storage part is in a dispensation or retrieval position from which the transported object can be dispensed or retrieved.

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.

A destacking conveyor and a method for destacking stacked articles, such as parcels and envelopes. The destacking conveyor comprises an inclined array of rollers that are arranged to rotate on axes perpendicular to a conveying direction. The conveyor is divided along its length into continuous roller-activation zones and selectively activated zones. In the continuous zones, the rollers always rotate in the conveying direction. In the selectively activated zones, the rollers are activated to rotate in the conveying direction and deactivated to be freely rotatable and allow articles to slide backward by gravity. The conveyor also includes a lift to change its inclination angle. By regulating the inclination angle and the activation and deactivation of the rollers in the selectively activated zones, piggy-backed articles slide off bottom articles.

Disclosed herein are an automatic infeed tipper and an apparatus and method for controlling the automatic infeed tipper. The apparatus for controlling an automatic infeed tipper includes an article infeed control unit for allowing a pallet loaded with multiple articles to be installed on the tipper and controlling an angle of the tipper so that the articles loaded onto the pallet are fed into a conveyor unit, and a conveyor control unit for sequentially driving a transport conveyor belt and a plurality of tipper-use conveyor belts, which are provided in the conveyor unit, so as to disperse the articles fed into the conveyor unit.