Patent ID: 7401691

Claim:
A conveyer apparatus comprising: a footstep guide rail; a plurality of footsteps having footstep rollers moving along the footstep guide rail; a footstep chain for connecting the footstep rollers of the footsteps with each other at predetermined pitches; a rotation driving device for generating a driving force to move the footsteps in a designated direction; and a drive sprocket that rotates due to the driving force of the rotation driving device and further transmits the driving force of the rotation driving device to the footstep chain, wherein the footstep guide rail is provided in a part thereof in the vicinity of the drive sprocket, with a mountainous or valley-shaped curved part so that a level of the footstep roller changes corresponding to mountainous or valley-shaped contours of the curved part thereby to absorb unevenness in velocity of the footstep roller, wherein a velocity of a pitch circle of the drive sprocket is represented by Vt; an average velocity of the footstep rollers moving while being connected to the footstep chain is represented by Vo; and a position where the velocity of the footstep rollers is reduced to change from Vt to Vo is represented by a reference position, and wherein there exist a plurality of reference positions along the footstep guide rail, and the curved part is arranged in a part of the footstep guide rail and positioned between a first reference position and a second reference position from the drive sprocket.