Patent ID: 8108424

Claim:
A method for transporting a plurality of objects, which method comprises the steps of: performing a plurality of transport operations, wherein each transport operation includes the steps of: transferring at least one object into a transportation unit; transporting the transportation unit containing the at least one object to a processing system; and feeding the at least one object transported by means of the transportation unit to the said processing system in such a manner that all objects from the transportation unit are fed to the said processing system before further objects are fed to it; measuring for a first time a given feature for every object and determining a value of the given feature for the object; for each transport operation, determining and storing a respective transport operation information, the transport operation information including information which objects are being transported together in this transport operation and the values of the given feature of these transported objects; for each object after feeding the object to the processing system, measuring for a second time the given feature for the object, and determining a value of the given feature for the object; and searching that transport operation by which this object is transported; and at least one transport operation further comprises the steps of: performing for n objects all being transported by this transport operation the measurements executed for the second time such that these n measurements yield n feature values, where n>=2, and determining every transport operation by which at least n object with these n measured feature values have been put into one transportation unit and have been transported with it, whereby the n feature values and the transport operation information are used for this determination; and for every object being transported by this transport operation to the processing system at least one transport operation determined in this way is used as the result of the search.