Patent ID: 6826444
Filing Date: 2004-11-30
Classification: B65B,G05B

Abstract:
A method of filling containers with piece goods, the method comprising the steps of:a) feeding the piece goods on a feed conveyor to at least two robots arranged in the conveying direction, the piece goods laying in an arrangement on the feed conveyor; b) conveying containers on a container conveyor to said two robots, the containers having empty spaces; c) in a filling operation, putting the piece goods with said robots into said empty spaces, thereby controlling said robots in accordance with said arrangement of the piece goods on the feed conveyor and driving said robots in such a way that they are utilized at least approximately uniformly over time when putting the piece goods into said empty spaces; d) subdividing said filling operation into time units; e) determining state variables for each time unit; f) representing a maintenance of the number of piece goods during filling in a first system of equations; g) representing a dynamic behavior of said empty spaces and of said piece goods during a time unit in a second system of equations; h) introducing complete filling of said containers and utilization of all of said robots uniformly over time as boundary conditions; i) setting up a time-discrete dynamic system of equations; and j) determining best parameters for controlling said robots, said determination being made using optimization algorithms and taking into account said boundary conditions and said state variables.