Patent ID: 6853876

Claim:
A distributed method for routing material from a source to a destination in a material transport system including track zones and directors connecting the track zones, wherein the directors include routing tables that store routing information for a plurality of routes across the material transport system to a destination, the method comprising: launching the material from the source; if the material enters a track neighborhood that includes a director through which the material must pass to proceed to the destination, notifying the director; the director, in response to the notifying, selecting an optimal route for the material based on the destination and stored routing information indicating for each material transport system destination a director exit angle and a route metric characterizing quality of a path to the destination originating from the director exit angle; the director subsequently decelerating the material, rotating to the director exit angle associated with the optimal route and relaunching the material along the optimal route; and automatically modifying said stored routing information to accommodate the addition of a new destination to the material transport system, said new destination announcing its presence to its immediate upstream neighbor using an announce message including an announce metric.