Patent ID: 7743904
Filing Date: 2010-06-29
Classification: B65G

Abstract:
1. A device for individual conveying of elongate objects, which comprises: a hopper for loosely containing the elongate articles; means for picking-up located at a lower mouth of the hopper, for supporting a pile of the elongate articles as well as being step-activated in order to extract batches of the articles from the hopper; a conveyor belt, in which a plurality of specially-dimensioned transversal seatings are afforded, which conveyor belt is ring-wound to define two consecutive branches, respectively an operative upper branch and a return lower branch, the upper branch comprising an initial tract, substantially horizontal, arranged at an input station underlying the hopper and destined to restingly receive the articles which come from the hopper, an ascending tract, wherein each transversal seating conveys at least an elongate article, arranged in a predetermined orientation, and each seating does not retain the elongate articles exceeding a maximum number and any wrongly-arranged articles, which elongate articles exceeding a maximum number and the any wrongly article drop into the input station, an intermediate tract and a final tract, situated at an unloading station of the elongate articles; sensor organs located in the input station, for detecting a minimum load level of the elongate articles and for enabling the step-activation of the means for picking-up; optical detecting organs, arranged superiorly of the intermediate tract, for detecting in each of the transversal seatings a presence or absence of elongate articles and if a presence thereof has been detected, detecting a number, a position and an orientation of the elongate articles; robotic manipulating organs located at the unloading station above the final tract of the operative upper branch, controlled by the optical detecting organs, for picking-up from each full transversal seating in arrival at least one elongate article on a basis of coordinates provided by the optical detecting organs, in order to transfer the elongate article to an output position downstream, with a predetermined orientation; means for collecting the elongate articles not picked-up by the robotic manipulating organs and unloaded by the conveyor belt beyond the final tract of the operative upper branch.