Patent ID: 11883974
Assignee: JOHN BEAN TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION
Field: Machine tools (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC B  A | IPC A  B

Claim 6:
7. A harvester for a food processing system, in the food processing system food items being processed are carried on a conveyor, the food processing system including a scanning system for scanning the food items to generate data pertaining to physical specifications of the food items, including sizes and shapes of the food items and locations of the food items on the conveyor, the harvester picking up the food items from the conveyor and delivering the food items at one or more desired locations, the harvester comprising:
(a) a pickup system for picking up the food items from the conveyor, comprising:
a nozzle having an inlet configuration to receive the food items from the conveyor; and
a vacuum source for creating a vacuum at the nozzle;

(b) a discharge system in flow communication with the nozzle to launch the food items in a desired trajectory so that the food items travel through the air exterior of any conduit;
(c) an actuator to position the nozzle in a desired position relative to the food items to facilitate picking up the food items with the nozzle, the actuator automatically rotating the nozzle about an upright axis to aim the discharge system at a desired angular orientation about the upright axis; and
(d) a control system for receiving the data from the scanning system pertaining to the physical specifications of the food items, including the sizes and the shapes of the food items and the locations of the food items on the conveyor, and the control system controlling the actuator to position the nozzle with respect to the food items to enable the nozzle to pick up the food items from the conveyor and positioning the discharge system to direct the food items at the trajectory to place the food items at the one or more desired locations away from the conveyor while the nozzle is capable of remaining located above the conveyor while the discharge system launches the food items, the control system controlling the actuator to rotate the nozzle based on the data received from the scanning system.