Patent ID: 8489232

Claim:
A parcel monitoring system, comprising: a tunnel; a conveyor belt extending through the tunnel, the conveyor belt operable to move a shipment parcel into the tunnel; a transparent path segment positioned such that the shipment parcel is moved from the conveyor belt to the transparent path segment; a sensor configured to sense the shipment parcel as the conveyor belt is moving the shipment parcel; a camera positioned to capture an image of the shipment parcel through the transparent path segment; and logic configured to control the camera based on the sensor such that the camera captures the image of the shipment parcel through the transparent path segment while the shipment parcel is in the tunnel and on the transparent path segment, the logic configured to store the image and to correlate the image with an identifier for the shipment parcel, the logic configured to analyze the image to determine a shipment parameter indicated by a label attached to the shipment parcel, the logic further configured to automatically detect an exception for the shipment parcel based on the shipment parameter, the exception indicating at least one of a shipment parcel defect or a shipment parameter defect.