Patent ID: 9630787
Date: 2017-04-25
CPC Classifications: B65G,G06Q,G16C

Claim:
1. A pneumatic tube carrier routing system comprising: a receiving station comprising a plurality of receiving bins and no more than one dispatcher, wherein each receiving bin comprises a separate receiving area and a door preventing access to said separate receiving area of each receiving bin; a sending station routably connected to the receiving station via pneumatic tubing, wherein the sending station comprises a carrier receiving bin and a tag reader that reads an identification tag of a carrier or of contents of a carrier to obtain destination information, wherein said destination information comprises identification of one receiving bin of the plurality of receiving bins of the receiving station; a system control module in signal communication with the sending station and the receiving station, wherein the system control module comprises a database module that stores a list of users authorized to access said one receiving bin of the receiving station; wherein the system control module receives the identification of the one receiving bin from the sending station and routes the carrier from the sending station to the one receiving bin of the receiving station through the pneumatic tubing; wherein the system control module receives a selection of the one receiving bin and a user identification information from the receiving station or from a mobile device, verifies whether the user identification information matches a user from the list of users authorized to access said one receiving bin, and upon determining that the user identification information matches a user from the list of users authorized to access said one receiving bin, sends a command to the receiving station to unlock said door of the one receiving bin to allow the user to access the receiving bin.