Patent ID: 7000839

Claim:
An automated system for automatically identifying and measuring packages moving along a conveyor structure in a singulated or non-singulated manner, 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 including bar code symbol reading subsystems supported overhead, alongside, and/or below the conveyor structure by a support frame, for generating a scanning volume thereabove, for scanning bar codes on packages transported therethrough; a first multiple-package detection and dimensioning subsystem arranged on the input side of said scanning tunnel, a master clock for generating a global time reference used in connection with the time stamping of data elements generated within the system; a package velocity measurement subsystem; an input/output subsystem for managing the data inputs to and data outputs from said system; and a data management computer, with a graphical user interface (GUI), for realizing a data element queuing, handling and processing subsystem as well as other data and system management functions, wherein a second multiple package detection and dimensioning subsystem arranged on the output side of said scanning tunnel comprises 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 direction substantially perpendicular to the surface of the conveyor structure, and (ii) producing data representative of the height profile of packages exiting the scanning tunnel and processing the same to automatically detect the presence of each package moving along said conveyor structure and out of said scanning tunnel, and generate a data element indicative thereof.