PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16009838
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-06
Publication Date: 2018-10
Patent Classification: ["198", "437000"]

Abstract:
A controller of a robotic material handling system performs a method that conveys articles from a pile within a confined space. One or more articles per operation are robotically moved onto a vertically-positionable nose conveyor surface conveys toward a narrower rearward conveyor. Controller detects a jammed article that is at least partially supported by the nose conveyor and that has failed to fully convey onto the rearward. The controller attempts to dislodge the jammed article by causing at least one of: (i) vertically repositioning the nose conveyor surface; and (ii) activating at least one of the two or more parallel conveyors of the nose conveyor surface to run in a forward direction. After the attempt to dislodge, the controller activates at least one parallel conveyor that is contact with the jammed article in a rearward direction.

Claim (Index 8):
A robotic material handling system for unloading articles in an article pile, the robotic material handling system comprising:\n a mobile body; a movable robotic manipulator attached to the mobile body and comprising an end effector at an end, the end effector being configured to unload one or more articles from the article pile; a conveyor system mounted on the mobile body configured to receive the one or more articles from the end effector and to move the one or more articles towards a rear of the robotic material handling system, the conveyor system comprising: (i) a nose conveyor surface and (ii) a rearward conveyor, the nose conveyor surface having two or more parallel conveyors that are distal to and feed the rearward conveyor that is laterally narrower than the nose conveyor surface; an article detection system; and a controller in communication with the article detection system, the mobile body, the movable robotic manipulator, and the conveyor system, the controller being configured to:\n cause the nose conveyor surface of the robotic material handling system to be positioned proximate to the article pile, the nose conveyor surface being vertically-movable; \n cause the movable robotic manipulator to move the one or more articles onto the nose conveyor surface from the article pile; \n activate at least one of two or more parallel conveyors of the nose conveyor surface to convey at least one article from the nose conveyor surface toward the rearward conveyor; \n detect a jammed article that is at least partially supported by the nose conveyor surface and that has failed to be fully conveyed onto the rearward conveyor by the at the least one of the two or more parallel conveyors; and \n dislodge the jammed article by causing at least one of: (i) vertically repositioning the nose conveyor surface; and (ii) activating the at least one of the two or more parallel conveyors of the nose conveyor surface to run in a forward direction; and \n activate at least one parallel conveyor that is in contact with the jammed article in a rearward direction.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 9.0
- Percentile: 94.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.87342
- Patent Class: 198.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15483151', '15375900', '15481969', '14471688', '14836216']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.7008147897117413
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5766121690641625
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.6883945276469834
- Mean Citation Score: 306.96487399999995
- Max Citation Score: 495.915
- Similarity Product: 479.6852473765612

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 0
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test