Patent ID: 7275693

Claim:
An automated system for automatically identifying and measuring packages moving along a conveyor structure, said automated system comprising: a package conveyor system having a conveyor structure to support one or more package transport lanes along the conveyor structure; a scanning tunnel having an input side and an output side, and including bar code symbol reading subsystems supported overhead, alongside, and/or below the conveyor structure by a support frame, for producing a scanning volume thereabove, for scanning bar codes on packages transported therethrough and generating a data element identifying each scanned package; a package detection and dimensioning subsystem arranged on the input side of said scanning tunnel, and including a laser-based scanning mechanism for (i) generating an amplitude modulated laser beam that is repeatedly scanned across the width-wise dimension of the scanning tunnel while oriented in a direction substantially perpendicular to the surface of said conveyor structure, and (ii) producing data representative of a height profile of packages entering said scanning tunnel and processing the data to automatically generate a data element representative of the dimensions of the scanned package; a package velocity measurement subsystem for generating data elements representative of the velocity of packages transported along said conveyor structure; a master clock for generating a global time reference used in connection with a time stamping of data elements generated within said automated system; and a data management computer for queuing, handling and processing data elements generated within said automated system.