Patent ID: 8297427

Claim:
A banknote handling apparatus comprising: a circling conveyance route having a circumferential length greater that a length of a longest one of all kinds of banknotes to be handled, configured to convey a banknote in both forward and reverse directions; a discrimination sensor provided on the circling conveyance route, the discrimination sensor being configured to discriminate denominations of the banknote moved past the sensor; a banknote introduction unit into which a received banknote is introduced: a plurality of banknote storage units each for accommodating the received banknote of corresponding one or more of denominations; a banknote release unit configured to release the banknote removed from at least one of the storage units in preparation for disbursement; interconnecting conveyance routes connected between the circling conveyance route and the banknote introduction unit, the banknote storage units, and the banknote release unit, respectively to convey a banknote therebetween; a route charger configured to change an actual banknote conveyance route from/to the circling conveyance route to/from any one of the interconnecting conveyance routes; and a control unit configured to control at least the conveyance direction of the circling conveyance route and the route changer; wherein: the introduction unit, the release unit are arranged at an opposite side from the storage units with respect to the circling conveyance route in a diametral direction of the circling conveyance route; and the control unit is further configured to control the conveyance direction of the circling conveyance route such that: (i) when feeding the banknote into any one of the storage units, the banknote is conveyed by the circling conveyance route in forward direction, and (ii) when feeding the banknote into the release unit, the banknote is conveyed by the circling conveyance route in the reverse direction, wherein: each of the storage units is configured to take one of a standby state in which the storage unit accepts a banknote to be stored, from the circling conveyance route through the associated interconnecting conveyance route, and a non-standby state other than the standby state; and the control unit is further configured to control the circling conveyance route and the route changer such that if the storage unit associated with the banknote to be stored is in the non-standby state, a circling conveyance of the same banknote on the circling conveyance route is repeated until the same unit has taken the standby state.