Patent ID: 7668491

Claim:
A belt conveyor, comprising: an endless belt that is looped over a plurality of rollers, the plurality of rollers including a drive roller and a meandering correction roller; a drive unit that rotates the drive roller to drive the endless belt; a meandering correction unit that adjusts an inclination of the meandering correction roller to correct meandering of the endless belt in a width direction thereof; a plurality of position detection units that detects positions of the endless belt in the width direction thereof and output detection signals; and a meandering correction control unit that uses the detection signals from the plurality of detection units to control the meandering correction unit, wherein the plurality of position detection units includes first and second position detection units that continuously detect the positions of the endless belt in the width direction, wherein the first and second position detection units are placed at different positions with respect to the width direction of the endless belt from each other, wherein the meandering correction control unit selectively uses the detection signal from one of the first and second position detection units to control the meandering correction unit, wherein the first and second position detection units have equal detection ranges, and further comprising a control unit that stops a rotation of the drive roller when the detection signal from one of the first and second position detection units falls outside a predetermined range.