A method for wrapping a load with a film, strip, band of extensible material comprises: unwinding a film of extensible material from a reel; making a pleat on the film by means of a pleating system; stretching the film by means of a pair of pre-stretching rollers; welding the pleat by means of at least one of the pre-stretching rollers; wrapping the load with the film provided with the pleat.

Dual and multi-modulator projector display systems and techniques are disclosed. In one embodiment, a projector display system comprises a light source; a controller, a first modulator, receiving light from the light source and rendering a halftone image of said the input image; a blurring optical system that blurs said halftone image with a Point Spread Function (PSF); and a second modulator receiving the blurred halftone image and rendering a pulse width modulated image which may be projected to form the desired screen image. Systems and techniques for forming a binary halftone image from input image, correcting for misalignment between the first and second modulators and calibrating the projector system—e.g. over time—for continuous image improvement are also disclosed.

Control of a wrapping apparatus is facilitated by enabling an operator to input a load containment force requirement and/or a minimum number of layers of packaging material to be applied to a load, with a wrap control system automatically determining wrap force and other parameters required to meet user input requirements and/or parameters to minimize the expertise required of an operator and to provide more consistent and reliable wrapping of loads. In addition, a wrapping apparatus may be controlled to apply at least a minimum number of layers of packaging material to a load throughout a contiguous region thereof.

A method, apparatus and program product may utilize packaging material quality compensation to sense changes in certain characteristics of a packaging material that can be associated with increased risks of film breaks, and automatically make certain changes in machine settings to mitigate the impact of those enhanced risks.

A system 100 for sheet coil packaging is provided. The system 100 preferably comprises: a sheet coil rotating arrangement 120, arranged to rotate a sheet coil 116 to enable it to be wrapped; first 112 and second 113 industrial robots, having first 108 and second 109 robot arms, arranged to wrap the sheet coil 116 using a wrapping tool 110, using sequences of the first robot arm 108 inserting the wrapping tool 110 into a central hole 118 of the sheet coil 116 and handing over the wrapping tool 110 to the second robot arm 109, and the second robot arm 109 transporting the wrapping tool 110 along the outside of the sheet coil 116 and handing it back to the first robot arm 108, as the sheet coil 116 is rotated by the sheet coil rotating arrangement 120; and two outer edge protection mounting devices 210, 220, arranged at opposite ends of the sheet coil 116 to feed out edge protection material 250 along an outer edge of the sheet coil 116 as the sheet coil 116 is rotated by the sheet coil rotating arrangement 120. The first 112 and second 113 industrial robots are preferably arranged to wrap the sheet coil 116 in synchronization with the feeding out of the edge protection material 250, thereby fixing the edge protection material 250 to the outer edges of the sheet coil 116 by the wrapping as the sheet coil 116 is rotated by the sheet coil rotating arrangement 120.

A method of wrapping a palletized load includes forming at least two composite stretch films, wrapping each of the composite stretch films around the palletized load, and leaving a gap between the first composite stretch film and the second composite stretch film as the composite stretch films are wrapped around the palletized load. Forming the composite stretch films includes narrowing stretch film from a first spool to create a first banded stretch film with a first width, narrowing stretch film from a second spool to create a second banded stretch film with a second width smaller than the first width, and overlaying the second banded stretch film on the first banded stretch film, with the second banded stretch film positioned between the top edge and bottom edges of the first banded stretch film. The gap may have a width that is equal to or larger than the first width.

A product stacking system may include an open bag detection subsystem and a product stacking subsystem. The open bag detection subsystem may agitate bags to cause product to be displaced out of open bags and determine if a bag is open by comparing a weight of the bag after the agitation to a target threshold. The product stacking subsystem may include a robotic arm and a controller that moves the robotic arm between posts of a bin based on an orientation of the bin. A turntable rotates the bin and can operate as an additional axis of movement of the robot.

The present invention relates to wrapping palletised items and loads. A method, system and apparatus is disclosed for stretch wrapping which provides a device adapted to provide strips of material of various widths, the device comprising: one or more blades for slitting a film of material to form two or more strips, a primary guide for guiding the two or more strips, a secondary guide, over which the strips pass, and two or more shaped recesses operatively associated with one of the primary guide or the secondary guide, each recess guiding a strip, wherein the width of the strips can be varied by altering the relative positions of the primary guide and secondary guide.

A wrapping machine with rotary platform for wrapping products with one band includes a base, a rotary platform defining a supporting plane and mounted on the base to rotate about a rotation axis perpendicular to the supporting plane, and supporting rollers interposed between the base and platform and distributed around the rotation axis. The machine also includes a guiding upright parallel to the rotation axis, a supporting slide movable along the guiding upright for receiving and retaining a reel of band, an intermediate disc mounted between and coupled to the base and platform to rotate about the rotation axis, the supporting rollers being mounted on the intermediate disc and in contact with the base and platform, and a transmission system for rotating the platform and intermediate disc about the rotation axis.

Control of a load wrapping apparatus may be based at least in part on packaging material grading and/or factory profiles.