Patent ID: 7628396

Claim:
A sheet transport system for transporting a set of sheets to a destination zone, comprising: a shingling loading zone that receives singular incoming sheets at a predetermined speed and outputs sequential sheets into a shingled transport zone; a shingled transport zone of a length sufficient to accommodate at least one maximum sheet length, the shingled transport zone including at least one transport device including shingling means for slowing down the incoming sheets and shingling the incoming sheets such that an upper sheet leading edge trails a lower sheet trailing edge by a predetermined shingle distance, the at least one transport device having a transport profile that transports the shingled sheets in unison at a reduced speed in a process direction; a vacuum transport assembly including at least two vacuum transport sub-assemblies, the sub-assemblies being provided with a spatial pitch less than or equal to the shingle distance, each sub-assembly including a plurality of belts spatially separated in the cross-process direction, the belts of each sub-assembly being interdigitated with belts of an adjacent sub-assembly, wherein each vacuum transport sub-assembly is located above the shingled sheets and includes means for acquiring a top leading edge of only a single sheet of the shingled sheets, the collective vacuum transport assembly being advanced to transport a shingled set of multiple sheets through the vacuum transport assembly simultaneously, with each vacuum sub-assembly acquiring and transporting only a single sheet of the set of multiple sheets with each sheet being separated by at least one shingle distance, and the last vacuum transport sub-assembly in the process direction transports a single sheet into the destination zone.