Patent ID: 8061506

Claim:
A conveyor system comprising: at least first and second conveyor lines for conveying transport units without a stop at an intersection point in a downstream direction, wherein the at least first and second conveyor lines either cross each other at the intersection point, or merge to one single line at the intersection point, wherein each of the at least first and second conveyor lines comprises, upstream relative to the intersection point, respectively one group of adjacently arranged conveyor-line segments; at least one control device for adjusting variable conveying velocities at each of the at least first and second conveyor lines; and at least one sensor device for detecting a traffic density of the transport units on the at least first and second conveyor lines; wherein each of the conveyor-line segments is controllable by the at least one control device such that it can be operated at a variable conveying velocity; wherein the control device is adapted to determine the traffic density, and is further adapted to generate first control signals based on the determined traffic density for adapting the conveying velocities of the conveyor-line segments of one of the at least first and second conveyor lines such that a transport unit which is conveyed on the one of the at least first and second conveyor lines does not collide at the intersection point with other transport units, which are conveyed on one of the other of the at least first and second conveyor lines, wherein arbitrarily each of the conveyor-line segments is operable at a different conveying velocity, and wherein a respective velocity at which each of the transport units is conveyed on the at least first and second conveyor lines is never decelerated to zero.