Patent ID: 7357317

Claim:
A system comprising: a plurality of conveyors located at different locations within a hub facility, the plurality of conveyors transporting packages within the hub facility; a plurality of sorting devices located at different locations within the hub facility and spaced apart from one another by respective ones of the plurality of conveyors; a plurality of machine controllers connected to respective conveyors and sorting devices; a radio-frequency identification (RFID) interrogator configured to read RFID tags associated with the packages carried on at least one of the conveyors to generate scanned data including a package identifier uniquely identifying the package; a hub control system remote from the sorting devices receiving package identifiers from the RFID interrogator and using the package identifiers to determine the destinations for the packages and respective corresponding sort destinations within the hub facility, the hub control system determining respective sortation paths to be followed by the packages from an intake position at which packages arriving at the hub facility are placed on the conveyors for sorting by the sorting devices to respective sort destinations from which packages exiting the hub facility are transported by the conveyors and sorting devices, the hub control system issuing handling instructions to the machine controllers along the sortation paths to sort the packages to respective sort destinations; and an indexed data server connected to the hub control system, the indexed data server receiving from the hub control system the package identifiers for which the hub control system cannot itself generate handling instructions, the indexed data server using the package identifiers as indexes to access a package information database containing package information indicating the destinations of the packages identified by the package identifiers, the indexed data server transmitting the package identifiers and corresponding destinations to the hub control system, the hub control system issuing respective handling instructions to the machine controllers based on the package identifiers and corresponding destinations received from the indexed data server.