Patent Document ID: 20110215035
Application ID: 12532038
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A method of sorting a plurality of articles (A, B, C), in which method each article has a surface provided with an indication of a routing point to which the article is to be routed, and in which method each article goes through a sorting installation in at least two passes; while a current article is passing through the installation on its first sorting pass, a digital image is generated of the surface of the article that bears said indication, said image of said indication is read automatically ( 4 ) so as to direct the article towards a sorting outlet of the installation, a unique identifier for the article is also generated ( 6 ) from the image, and said unique identifier is recorded ( 7 ) in a database in correspondence with the image of the article and with the result of the reading; and during each of the following sorting passes of each article through the installation, a current digital image of the article bearing said indication is generated again in order to derive ( 12 ) a current identifier for the article, and a match ( 13 ) is sought between said current identifier and the identifiers recorded in the database during the first sorting pass of the articles through the installation, so as to direct the current article to a sorting outlet of the installation; and in which method a search ( 20 ) is made in the database for at least one image generated during a pass in the sorting installation for at least one misrouted article in order to scrutinize the information recorded for that article in the database; said method being characterized in that, during said last sorting pass for each article through the installation, a grouping data item is recorded in correspondence with an image of said article in the database so as to obtain, in a memory, various groups of images corresponding to respective ones of the groups of articles in the sorting outlets, and the following steps are performed for the misrouted article in order to scrutinize the information: searching ( 22 - 28 ) the database for an article image that is the image of a reference article that is correctly routed; and on the basis of said reference article image, looking through ( 29 - 34 ) a grouped set of article images including the image of the reference article so as to identify an image of the misrouted article.