CN1261913C

CN1261913C - Method and apparatus for hose storage in article handling device

Info

Publication number: CN1261913C
Application number: CNB018100791A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 芒罗·切尔诺马斯
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2000-05-23
Filing date: 2001-05-23
Publication date: 2006-06-28
Anticipated expiration: 2021-05-23
Also published as: AU2001271272B2; WO2001095276A3; EP1360658A2; EP1287502A2; WO2001091071A3; WO2002003340A8; CN1430771A; KR100809986B1; WO2002019285A3; AU7127201A; DE60134424D1; EP1287504A1; AU2001264923B2; EP1287503A2; MXPA02011578A; CN101059888A; EP1287503B1; DE60135984D1; CN1941006A; MXPA02011581A

Abstract

In an article vending machine, a hose (220) for extracting the articles whereby a positioning mechanism (233, 243) is used to move the end (221) of the hose in a given plane. A drive mechanism (508) then moves the free end of the hose along a longitudinal axis. A user interface allows the user to control the positioning of the free end of the hose. The positioning mechanism may be X-Y, R-Theta, scissors telescoping linkage, etc. Also disclosed is the use of double robots so that eg. each article storage volume within the vending machine comprises its own article extracting device and positioning mechanism. The cabinet also includes refrigeration region and non-fefrigeration region.

Description

Method and apparatus for positioning article handling equipment for hose storage

Background

1. Field of the invention

The present invention relates generally to improvements in the design and operation of article handling equipment, and more particularly to article handling machinery of the electromechanical technology type having computer control, and in embodiments of the invention to an automatic positioning gripper, such as a suction mechanism, capable of grasping and moving a selected article from one area to another, such as from a storage area to a dispensing area.

2. Description of the Prior Art

In the point-of-sale (POS) environment of an article vending machine, most existing article handling mechanisms, and particularly those involved in the present invention, rely on multiple motors, switches and coils to move various parts of the handling mechanism and handle the articles themselves (e.g., packaged products). Most such machines require a motor, switch and/or coil to be dedicated to the row, column or type of goods or packages to be handled and distributed therein. As is well known to those skilled in the art, such machines often have a number of disadvantages, for example, their reliability may be poor due to mechanical failure.

U.S. patent 5,240,139 made a significant improvement to commercial processing equipment. The use of a negative air pressure elevator (i.e., article grasping or handling mechanism) is described herein that enters from the top opening of an article storage bin located in the refrigerated area of a vending machine and utilizes a suction mechanism (i.e., reduced or referred to as "negative" air pressure created by a partial vacuum) to achieve secure contact with the article to be sought. While automatically operated lifting mechanisms, and particularly suction type lifting mechanisms, have found widespread use in industrial settings where there is generally no space restriction, their use in devices having tightly confined spaces, such as vending machines for goods, has not gained wide acceptance. Because of the greater reliability and flexibility of vending machines that employ suction techniques to grasp and move selected articles, it is desirable to develop new techniques and methods for operating and controlling such machines and other more commonly used article handling mechanisms.

In the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 5,240,139, a method is utilized having 3: 1 and longitudinally compressible air hose to enable hose storage. One end of the hose is connected to a source of negative air pressure on a fixed beam that is movable laterally over the refrigerator. The other end of the air hose is connected to a commodity pickup head. Lateral positioning using such a compressible hose is satisfactory in the environment described in us patent 5,240,139, since the cooler only occupies the lower half of the interior of the vending machine, leaving sufficient upper half for the hose and its positioning mechanism. However, as a major part of the expense for the industry operating vending machines is the maintenance (replenishment) of the vending machine with goods, they desire to provide a higher product storage bin, with or without a freezer compartment, in order to maximize the utilization of the product storage within the vending machine cabinet. Prior art vending machines typically use only fifty to sixty percent of their effective article storage height.

Due to the above disadvantages, it is desirable to reduce the need for hose positioning mechanism height. One solution is to use an incompressible hose. The advantage of using an incompressible hose is that it can be driven and/or guided by direct engagement with the hose wall, which is a very simple technique compared to the indirect hose positioning technique described in the later-mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 5,240,139. In addition, the use of an incompressible hose is advantageous in that it maintains a constant length regardless of the variation in vacuum level experienced. Also, the incompressible hose has better structural integrity and less leakage than the example of the collapsible tube. However, the use of incompressible hoses presents two serious problems: 1) where it is necessary to hold a hose long enough to ensure that its free end can move from the bottom of the hose positioning mechanism (a position aligned with the top of the article storage bin) to the bottom of the article storage bin; 2) how to simply and reliably remove and replace it from the storage area as needed.

In PCT patent application WO99/12132 entitled "vending machine" ("VENDING MACHINE") a vending machine is disclosed which comprises a folding hinged arm for placing an article gripper suction hose into the freezer compartment to remove the articles to be vended. The hose is incompressible and remains continuous from a base region located below the hinged arm to its free end, which is connected to a product pick-up head. A linear actuator and arm mechanism is mounted in the bottom section for driving the hose through the hinged arm into and out of the bottom section and into the freezing chamber. The hose positioning mechanism described in this PCT application has a similar disadvantage to the later mentioned U.S. patent 5,240,139 in that they all require a significant volume within the vending cabinet so that the mechanism can lift the hose into the cabinet in a package dispensing cycle (i.e., a height that is nearly equal to the height of the article storage cabinet itself). In addition, it should be noted that since the majority of the length of hose has been stored within the folded articulated arm, only a relatively small length of hose has to be stored to meet the amount of hose required to move the article pickup head in the Z direction (i.e., into and out of the freezer compartment). It should also be noted that this patent publication presents a relatively complex mechanism for hose positioning, storage and actuation.

An ICE CREAM vending machine is disclosed IN german patent DE 245673 entitled "ICE CREAM vending machine with SUCTION HEAD for extracting stacked ICE CREAM packages FROM a freezer" entitled "VENDINGMACHINE FOR ICE CREAM-USING sports drink TO pick up stacked ICE CREAM packages IN a freezer" filed on 1976, 26.1976, and IN which a movable transport device is mounted inside the freezer compartment, which is movable laterally over a product storage bin. The conveyor includes a drive mechanism for lowering an electrical cord having an air suction motor at a free end thereof into the article storage bin for removal of the ice cream package. Such positioning mechanisms for article handling equipment avoid the problem of hose storage by physically lowering the suction motor into the storage bin. However, it has a serious problem in that there is a possibility that reliability/malfunction may occur due to repeated bending and expansion of the electric wire. In addition, the diameter of the suction motor is severely limited by the size of the article storage bin.

In U.S. patent 5,957,326 entitled "APPARATUS for RANDOMLY retrieving ORGANIZED ARTICLES," an automated merchandising APPARATUS is disclosed that includes a carriage movable laterally over an article storage bin and a drive mechanism for lowering a pick-up head into the bin, the pick-up head having a plurality of suction cups mounted thereon, each suction cup being individually connected to a length of hose that is connected back to a manifold providing suction thereto. A significant drawback of such positioning mechanisms for article handling equipment is that during repositioning, the plurality of suction hoses associated with the pick-up head may protrude significantly into the space that would otherwise be available for storing articles to be sold/dispensed, since they are not placed in the hose storage area, but are coiled/dragged under the carriage.

In U.S. patent 4,557,659 entitled "DEVICE for supporting and handling LOADS BY vacuum SUCTION pad (" DEVICE supporting AND HANDLING LOADS BY MEANS OF a vacuum operated DEVICEs ") a commodity pick-up and delivery apparatus is disclosed in which a motor is slidably mounted on a raisable and rotatable i-beam for lowering a wire toward a commodity to be handled. The free end of the wire has a pick-up head with a plurality of suction cups mounted thereon. A suction supply pipe, which is continuous from the suction generator to the pick-up head, is loosely supported between its ends by a series of slides connected to a rotatable i-beam. The obvious drawback of this type of positioning mechanism for article handling equipment is substantially the same as that of us patent 5,957,326, namely that during the repositioning process, the suction ducts, being dragged along or behind the conveyor, can intrude into and occupy a significant amount of the space that would otherwise be available for storing articles to be sold/dispensed.

Object of the Invention

It is an object of the present invention to provide a new technique and method for the design, operation and control of an article handling mechanism.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a new technique and method for the design, operation and control of an article handling mechanism of the type employing computer controlled electro-mechanical technology, and in the illustrated embodiment to provide an automatically positionable suction gripper for grasping and moving a selected article from one location to another, for example, from a storage area to a dispensing area.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide a new technique and method for such mechanisms that will increase the speed and accuracy of article handling while also handling the articles to be dispensed in a discreet manner to prevent any damage thereto.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide an article handling mechanism that is compact in height to maximize the article storage capacity of the storage area.

Disclosure of Invention

The above objects are achieved by an embodiment of a product dispensing device, such as a vending machine, as shown in the accompanying drawings, wherein the height of the interior of the device is limited by the height of the cabinet, which determines the height limitation. In order to maximize the storage capacity of the goods, the invention provides the following aspects:

1. during hose repositioning, the hose positioning mechanism maintains a constant height,

2. the hose is driven through the hose positioning mechanism in the article pick-up direction,

3. the movement of the hose is limited to the extent that the hose positioning mechanism moves between the hose storage area and the hose positioning mechanism,

4. the hose positioning mechanism is internally provided with a hose driving device,

5. the hose positioning mechanism is an X-Y, R-theta or pinch-shear arrangement, which will be described in more detail below.

Brief description of the drawings

FIG. 1 is a front perspective view of a vending machine constructed and operative in accordance with the principles of the present invention;

FIGS. 2 and 3 are front perspective views of the vending machine of FIG. 1 with the front door open to illustrate the major mechanical and electrical components thereof;

FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram illustrating the cooperative operation of the major mechanical and electrical components of the vending machine of FIG. 1;

FIGS. 5 and 6 show details of the shipping portion of the article handling mechanism shown in FIGS. 2 and 3;

FIG. 7 shows a detail of the hose guide mechanism of FIGS. 2 and 3;

FIG. 8 illustrates an alternative embodiment of the hose positioning mechanism of FIG. 3;

figures 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 illustrate various combinations/arrangements of article handling mechanisms and storage areas.

Detailed description of the preferred embodiments of the invention

FIG. 1 illustrates the environment of the invention described herein in the form of a merchandise vending machine, such as a point-of-sale (POS) vending machine. Although throughout the following description reference is made to the practice of the invention in a vending machine environment, the term "vending machine" and indeed the environment of the invention shall include more general goods handling, retrieval and/or dispensing equipment as well as POS equipment. Such equipment, if implemented as a portable device, may include and be about the size of a conventional vending machine or a trailer as large as being towed by a tractor, while if implemented as a non-portable device, may include and be implemented as a vending room or an area located in a permanent structure such as in a building (above ground or underground, with interior walls or enclosed cabinets). Additionally, the terms "good" or "product," as included in at least some embodiments of the inventions described herein, refer not only to goods, but also to services and/or information in permanent or temporary form.

FIG. 1 illustrates a perspective view of a vending machine 10 incorporating one embodiment of an apparatus constructed and operative in accordance with the present invention. Vending machine 10 includes a main cabinet 12 and a front door 14 mounted on a pivot 16 for accessing the interior of the vending machine for servicing (filling the vending machine with goods, performing maintenance, etc.). Note that in another vending machine embodiment, the service door or port may be located anywhere on the cabinet 12 or as part of the cabinet 12. In FIG. 1, front door 14 is in a closed position, forming an enclosure with main cabinet 12, in which various portions of vending machine 10 are housed, as will be described in greater detail below.

The front door 14 includes a convex portion 18 adjacent a flat portion 20; however, these particular shapes are not required for the present invention. The male portion 18 includes a translucent plastic display panel 18 that typically has branding and/or identification graphics thereon, and may also include graphics depicting individual items that may be sold by the vending machine 10, as well as price and/or selection information for the items. The panel 18 typically employs fluorescent lamps (not shown) as the backlight.

A customer retrieval area 22 is formed in the face panel 18 of the door 14 so that items stored therein may be dispensed to a user of the vending machine 10.

Various user interface features are mounted on the flat portion 20 of the door 14. Customer display 24 may be a conventional fluorescent or LED display screen for displaying various items of information to the user of machine 10, such as feedback on the user's selections, the desired quantity, and whether the product has been or is being sold. To accept payment, the cash register inlet 26 receives the note into a conventional cash register mechanism (mounted within the machine 10 so that its user interface portion protrudes through an aligned opening in the flat portion 20) for purchase or change of merchandise. The coin insertion slot 28 receives coins into a conventional coin changer (also mounted within the machine 10 such that its user interface portion projects through an aligned opening in the flat portion 20) for purchase or change of merchandise. The coin change actuator 30 includes a conventional button mechanism for actuating a coin change portion of the coin exchange mechanism, which is actuated to change coins currently inserted by the user back into the coin change slot 32. The change portion of the coin exchange mechanism also provides change to the change slot 32 in response to the purchase of merchandise, or to change the currency or large denomination of coins. The credit/debit card slot 34 accepts a plastic credit/debit card inserted into a conventional card reader mechanism (also mounted within the machine 10 so that its user interface portion protrudes through an aligned opening in the planar portion 20) to allow a user to make purchases with the credit/debit card. The door lock mechanism 36 locks the front door 14 and cannot be opened without a key. To enable selection by the user, the display panel 18 may include graphics as described above that indicate the various items that the machine may sell, as well as their associated prices and unique selection numbers. In addition, the flat portion 20 may include a set of graphical merchandise display portions and their corresponding prices. A conventional keypad button mechanism 38 is provided to enable a user to select a desired item from vending machine 10. In addition, the button mechanism 40 may include a plurality of independent buttons for each item of merchandise selected, as well as associated price displays; in addition, the button mechanism 40 and the display 24 may even be replaced with a user-operated touch screen. Although not shown in FIG. 1, machine 10 also includes a conventional telecommunications component for authenticating credit card purchases for other machine control related purposes and for reporting inventory and operating status of machine 10 to a remote location, as will be more fully described below. Although vending machine 10 is shown to include the user interface components described above, in smaller embodiments of the invention, most, if not all, of these user interface components may be omitted, and the vending machine may actually be controlled remotely, whether or not with a local payment system.

Fig. 2 is a front perspective view of the vending machine of fig. 1 with the front door open for illustrating the major mechanical and electrical components therein. Fig. 3 is a somewhat idealized version of the major components of the article handling mechanism portion of vending machine 10 for an understanding of its general operation. Note that in these figures, portions of vending machine 10 have been removed for the purpose of better illustrating the internal components.

Referring first to fig. 2, the right portion of the front of the cabinet portion 12 includes a vertically mounted support panel 202 for mounting most of the user interface components. More specifically, mounted on the panel 202 is a hingedly mounted bracket 204 that aligns with an opening in the door 14 so that a user can access various user interface components from the front of the door 14, such as: a selection button keypad 40, a coin insertion slot 30, a cash register inlet 28, a coin return 32, and a customer display 24. Mounted inside the front door 14 are two fluorescent light sources (which are behind the protective cover 206. other numbers of light sources may be used) that illuminate to backlight the panel 18, and a ballast (ballast) for the fluorescent lights and a product delivery chute 210 are mounted on the door 14. Note that the product delivery chute 210 differs from conventional techniques in that it is particularly tall and therefore serves as a safety measure to prevent unauthorized access to the machine by inserting an arm or other gripping mechanism into the customer retrieval area 22 from outside the machine. In a typical prior art vending machine, a swinging security door is typically seen from the top of chute 210, which swings to a vandal blocking position when the customer pushes the swinging door at the entrance to product retrieval area 8. In another embodiment of vending machine 10, such a security gate may be used in conjunction with product delivery chute 210, particularly if chute 210 is not as tall as shown in FIG. 2 and if product retrieval area 8 is located higher up on machine 10. Mounted behind the hinged mounting bracket 204 is a conventional cash register mechanism for drawing notes inserted into the cash register inlet 28 into the vending machine 10, and behind the faceplate is a conventional coin change machine for supplying coins to the change port 34, a coin guide for guiding inserted coins into the coin change machine, and a conventional validator for confirming that notes are properly inserted into the cash register inlet 28.

The control board 212 includes a printed circuit board on which circuits are formed and which houses integrated circuit chips. Control panel 212 includes a microprocessor that is electrically connected to various sensors, motors, the user interface described above, and other devices located within vending machine 10 to control the operation of vending machine 10. Although reference is made in this description to the operation of the specified functions of the control board 212, it should be understood that these functions are controlled by the microprocessor and associated circuitry formed on the control board 212. A power supply 214 is mounted to the faceplate 202 and provides power to the electrical components of the vending machine 10.

Referring now to fig. 3, it is apparent that the volume of the interior of cabinet 12 may be used as a product storage area 215. In the illustrated embodiment, a plurality of vertically aligned article storage bins 216 are arranged on an interior bottom surface 217 of cabinet 12 for storing articles 223 to be sold by machine 10. In the refrigeration environment of the present invention, the storage bins are arranged in shelves positioned above the refrigeration system.

An open-top container 219 is sized to store a plurality of article storage bins 216 therein and is used, for example, to facilitate handling (i.e., removal, placement and transport) of the plurality of bins 216 into/out of article storage area 215 simultaneously. The container 219 also facilitates quick and accurate placement of a plurality of article storage bins into the storage area of the article handling device. A carriage 218 (which may be more generally referred to as an X-Y or planar positioning mechanism) is coupled to the interior top side of cabinet 12 and is adapted to be controllably positioned by the control panel portion 212 of machine 10 to a central location on (so as to be aligned with) the open top end of a selected one of the plurality of article storage bins 216.

Although article storage bins 216 are shown as being vertically (Z-axis) aligned, non-vertical, i.e., tilted, or even horizontal (X or Y-axis) alignment is possible (such as found in the well-known glass front end vending machines that use "helix" type vending machines). With the bins substantially horizontally aligned, the plane positioning mechanism would be appropriately modified to place the transporter 218 for movement in the X/Z or Y/Z plane. Indeed, curved surfaces such as cylinders are also considered to be within the scope of the present invention. It is known to combine a substantially horizontally aligned stack of product items with an automatically mechanically controllable article transport mechanism that moves in a vertical plane adjacent the VENDING end of the stack, such as is found in U.S. patent 6,230,930 entitled "METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR VENDING PRODUCTS" (METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR marketing PRODUCTS), issued 5-15-2001, AND U.S. patent publication US2001/0000609, published 3-5-2001. It is known to convey goods by curved surfaces, as is seen, for example, in the videocassette merchandising art, wherein the videocassette is arranged in an outwardly facing manner on a central storage carousel, around which a machine gripper surrounds the carousel. Further, although article storage bins 216 are shown in an atmospheric environment, bins 216 may in fact be placed in a refrigerated environment, such as a freezer located at the bottom of storage area 217, with the article transport mechanism entering the bins from an opening at the top of the freezer, as shown and described in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 5,240,139. Additionally, where the refrigerated environment is to include substantially horizontally aligned storage bins, a vertically oriented opening may be used to provide access to the dispensing end of the article storage bins.

In the context of the present invention, an air hose 220 continues from a point before it exits from a hose storage area 222 through orthogonally positioned rollers 213 to its free end 221. The free end 221 includes a weighted portion 225 in combination with a bellows expansion tip portion 227. Depending on the physical characteristics of the item being dispensed, the item pickup head 224 may include only the weighted portion 225, or a combination of that portion and a fitting specifically adapted to the type of item being dispensed, such as a bellows head 227 or a flexible head without weights. Hose 220 is connected at one end to a negative pressure or suction source, which in the preferred embodiment includes a blower motor 226 and a free end connected to article pickup head 224. In the present invention, "continuous" means that a hose is connected between two ends, the hose acting to perform the required function of the hose as a whole or as a single hose. An air hose section 235 provides suction from blower motor 226 to one port of air junction box 229, while a continuous hose 220 is connected to the other port of air junction box 229. An air connection box 229 contained at the top of the hose storage area 222 includes an airflow sensor and vacuum breaker (breaker) assembly. The airflow sensor is used to develop a signal indicative of the airflow through the airflow hose 220 that is loaded onto the vending machine controller. The vacuum breaker assembly is used to quickly bring the air pressure in hose 220 to atmospheric pressure so that the article being conveyed by the article pickup head can be "quickly released" to delivery chute 210. It is noted that the quick release of product need not be at the top of delivery chute 210, and that the article pickup head may travel all the way to the bottom of delivery chute 210 to quickly release the article when it is desired to avoid subjecting the article to external forces due to jamming or dropping. In one embodiment, the configuration of the airflow sensor may comprise a two-part switch, the first part comprising a reed switch mounted on the top of box 229 and the second part comprising a magnet mounted on the free end of a swing arm inside box 229. As the swing arm swings within the box 229 due to changes in airflow, the switch is "triggered" thereby indicating a change in airflow. The purpose of the airflow signal will be described in more detail below.

According to one aspect of the present invention, a novel hose positioning mechanism is provided. As generally shown in fig. 3 and shown in more detail in fig. 5 and 6, a conveyor 218 is aligned with a selected one of the bins 216. This alignment is accomplished in the fore/aft (Y) direction with fore/aft linear slides 228 (shown in phantom) mounted on "L" shaped fore/aft beams 230 so that carriage 218 is controllably positioned along the fore/aft beams with slides 228. The bottom edge portion of beam 230 includes a shelf portion 232 and carriage 218 includes a motor 233 that drives a gear (633 in FIG. 6) that engages shelf portion 232. Forward and backward motor control signals applied from the control board 212 to the motor 233 cause the carriage 218 to be driven in the forward/backward direction. Left/right (X) direction alignment of carriage 218 is performed in a similar manner using left/right linear slides 234 that slidably engage the upper side of front/rear beam 230 with the lower sides of spaced left/right beams 236a and 236 b. Beams 236a and 236b are rigidly attached to the interior top side of cabinet 12. A shelf 238, also rigidly attached to the top inside portion of the cabinet 12 and parallel to the beam 236, engages a gear 240 driven by a reversible motor 243 mounted near the inside corner of the beam 230. Forward and backward motor control signals applied from control board 212 to motor 243 cause gear 240 to rotate and cause corresponding movement of beam 230, and thus carriage 218, in the left/right (X) direction.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, when the hose positioning mechanism causes an article 223 to be moved by pickup head 224 from bin 216 to chute 210, it will be moved past an article Identification (ID) device 254 mounted within cabinet 12. No particular type of article ID device is required for the present invention and depending on the system constraints such devices may include, for example, a bar code scanner or other optical image/pattern recognition system, or may even be non-optical systems such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), or magnetic based systems mounted within the cabinet 12, all of which can be used to uniquely identify and confirm that the article being dispensed is the article of choice. The construction of such an article recognition device is well known to those skilled in the art and therefore further explanation in this respect is not required.

Note that the article ID device 254 is mounted within the cabinet 12 at a relatively fixed location, such mounting enabling some controlled movement in the direction of the article ID device 254 to help ensure good "viewing" of the conveyed article, and a high confidence of the conveyed article being identified. One way to provide such controlled movement of the ID device 254 is to mount it on a piezoelectric substrate to which the control board 212 can provide a voltage to move the "view" of the ID device 254. It is noted that by using a properly positioned article ID device 254, only a single article ID device 254 is required. This is particularly useful for automated vending machines because the automated equipment can controllably position and, if desired, reposition the articles in proximity to the article ID device 254, thereby helping to ensure that the articles have a reliable ID.

As shown in fig. 2, bin support means 260 includes a pair of spaced apart rectangular brackets facing the interior sidewalls of cabinet 12, and bin support means 260 is provided for maintaining the cabinet disposed therebetween in a predetermined position relative to the interior of the cabinet of the vending machine. This is required when considering the pre-programming of the control board 212. The control panel 212 controls the automation mechanism to remove a selected article from a selected one of the bins 216.

Note that although carriage assembly 218 only moves in a single plane, it is responsible for precisely positioning pickup head 224 in X, Y and the Z direction. More specifically, in accordance with another aspect of the present invention, as shown in fig. 5 and 6, carriage 218 includes a roller arrangement 502 including three orthogonally disposed rollers 504 at the point where hose 220 enters carriage 218 for redirecting movement of hose 220 along the top, inner portion of machine 10 from a substantially horizontal direction (i.e., direction X, Y) to a direction perpendicular thereto (i.e., direction Z). Movement of carriage 218 will not only move free end 221 of hose 220 so that it is axially aligned with the selected bin 216, but it will also automatically withdraw hose 220 from hose storage area 222. The hose drive mechanism (which may comprise a set of conventionally operated "pinch rollers" 506) is then driven by a reversible motor 508 through a gear train 510, which in the illustrated embodiment is mounted within the carriage 218, but in another embodiment the motor 508/roller 506 (or some other drive mechanism, such as that found in the later-mentioned PCT publication WO 99/12132) may also be mounted anywhere along the length of the hose 220 thereon for driving the pick-up head 224 into/out of a selected bin 216 for retrieval of the articles stored therein. Where hose 220 includes helical corrugations along its length, the pinch rollers 506 may also include matching corrugations to assist in driving hose 220.

In this configuration, the hose 220 moves in the same X, Y plane as the carriage 218, enabling the present invention to have a compact embodiment of the hose positioning and drive mechanism. Furthermore, because the movement of the carriage is responsible for providing the primary force required to withdraw the hose 220 from the storage area 222, the Z drive motor need only drive the hose to move its free end into/out of the bin 216 for article retrieval. It should be noted that the pinch rollers 506 should comprise a soft rubber material to provide good frictional contact with the hose 220, and if the hose 220 comprises helical corrugations along its length on the structure, the rollers 506 may have corresponding/matching corrugations to provide a more positive driving force to the hose 220. In the illustrated embodiment, it has been determined that two drive rollers are not required, and thus only one of the pinch rollers is driven by the motor 508, while a spring (514) is used to force the other roller toward the drive roller to pinch and drive the hose 220 therebetween. Furthermore, when a corrugated hose is used, in some applications a linear screw mechanism adjacent hose 220 may be used to drive the hose instead of pinch rollers 506.

In the context of vending machines, a compact hose positioning and drive mechanism is important. The inventive structure of the present invention provides a very compact, automated structure that maximizes the ability of the conveyor to place the hose inside the cabinet 4. The compact automated configuration also maximizes the storage capacity of the vending machine 10 and enhances the maneuverability of the automated positioner within a maximized storage area. Consider a cabinet with a height of 72 inches: prior art hose positioning mechanisms such as those described in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 5,240,139 or PCT patent application publication WO99/12132 typically occupy about 40% of the height of the interior of the cabinet, leaving only 60% or less of the space to store the items to be sold. With the structure of the present invention, the hose positioning and drive mechanism takes up less than 25% of the height, which is a highly desirable result. In addition, it is noted that a significant advantage of the compact hose positioning and drive mechanism of the present invention is that it occupies only less than 15% of the height of the container volume in the illustrated embodiment. More significantly, this very compact hose positioning and drive mechanism can place the free end of the hose in alignment with the merchandise cabinet, yet have the ability to drive the hose to the bottom of the cabinet. In the present invention, the hose can be driven a distance three times greater than the height of the hose positioning mechanism, and in fact in the illustrated embodiment the hose is driven a distance five times greater than the height of the hose positioning mechanism.

Shown in fig. 5, 6 and 7 is a telescoping guide mechanism 550 for ensuring that pick head 224 falls into the desired cabinet 216 as it is lowered into the storage area by the drive mechanism in the transporter. For example, depending on the material comprising hose 220, the 90 degree turn of the hose that occurs in carriage 218 may form a large "kink" in hose 220 during the long time that hose 220 is not repositioned. This kink may then cause pickup head 224 to oscillate as the hose 220 is lowered into the selected cabinet 216 as the hose kink moves past drive wheel 506. To prevent such unwanted swinging or movement of pickup head 224, a guide mechanism 550 may be provided and may include a guide plate 552 attached to the terminal ends of two sliding support rods 554. As can be seen more clearly in fig. 7, the support rods 554 slide through holes in a plastic (PVC, i.e., polyvinyl chloride) block 556 that is secured over the sidewall portions of the carriage 218. The center of guide plate 552 has a hole sized slightly larger than the diameter of the pick head body portion, but smaller than the diameter of its shoulder. Thus, support rods 554 allow support plate 552 to descend by gravity at the same speed as pickup head 224 descends away from carriage 218 during operation when pickup head 224 is lowered into the desired cabinet. At the top of cabinet 216 and at a height determined by the length of support rod 554, plate 552 no longer moves away from carriage 218 and its central hole only provides a guide for the descending remainder of pickup head 224 to enter the selected cabinet 216. When the pickup head 224 picks up a packaged article due to the suction force generated in the hose 220 and is retracted from the cabinet, the pickup head 224 finally comes into contact with the guide plate 552, and then the remaining portion thereof continues to perform the ascending movement, and the retraction of the hose 220 also causes the guide plate 552 to be retracted.

As shown in fig. 5 and 6, the movement of the carriage 218 is stabilized by the assistance of the bracket 512, the bracket 512 is disposed below the top of the support beam 230, the slide 228 is restrained by and follows the movement thereof, and a "U" -shaped lip portion 602 protrudes from the lower portion of the support beam 230. The upwardly facing portion of the lip portion 602 engages (actually "nests") a downwardly facing channel of a slide mechanism 604 associated with the carriage 218. It is believed that the diagonally disposed support provided by the combination of the bracket 512 and the slider 218 and the lip 602 and the slider mechanism 604, which are secured to the legs of the "L" shaped support beam 230, cooperate to provide superior stability to the carriage 218 during movement of the carriage 218 along the beam 230.

As best seen in fig. 7, support rod 554 comprises a plurality of rods having threaded holes at each end for receiving machine screws. At the top of rod 554, screw head 555 forms a shoulder that prevents rod 554 from falling completely through the hole in block 556, and at the bottom of rod 554, there is a screw that secures the rod to plate 552. As shown in FIG. 14b, plate 552 includes a protective grommet having a hole therein to prevent hose 220 from being damaged and to reduce wear as it passes through plate 552. Note that the height of the grommets is preferably greater than the distance between adjacent turns of the helical support structure of the hose 220. Additionally, it should also be noted that the hose 220 is preferably constructed of a strong flexible coil portion having a doming action for forming the shape of the hose, which is formed with a flexible sealing plastic material spanning adjacent turns of the coil portion.

Other configurations of the guide mechanism 132 are also contemplated. For example, a series of telescoping tube segments may be used that are attached to the bottom of carriage 218 and through which hose 220 passes in place of rod 136 and plate 134.

As previously described, because hose 220 is formed of a continuous material from its end connected to the suction source through to pickup head 224 at its other end, means are required to provide hose storage and/or recovery during the appropriate movement of pickup head 224 in the X, Y and Z directions during the article dispensing operation.

Thus, as shown in FIG. 3, an inner wall 246 is positioned parallel to and alongside an outer wall 248 of the cabinet 12 to form a hose storage area 222 between the outer and inner walls. The cross-sectional area of the hose storage area 222 is slightly larger than the cross-sectional area of the hose loop formed therein. Wall 246 and wall 248 are partially cut away to show a gravity feed retracting loop tensioner/retraction mechanism 250 formed in hose 220. The loop tensioner 250 is restrained from movement within the hose storage area 222 by being pulled somewhat by a slide hammer 252 that is self-contained, having a groove 253 along the edge of the slide hammer for maintaining a constant centered position of the slide hammer within the hose storage area 222 and for providing a constant "loop-forming" tension on the hose 220. Additionally, centering the grooved slide weight 252 within the hose storage area 222 centers the hose 220, thereby preventing the hose 220 from rubbing against the side walls of the hose storage area 222 during the X, Y and Z repositioning process of the pick-up head 224. To prevent the hose 220 from rolling up, the slide weight 252 is sized slightly larger than the diameter of the hose 220, and the width dimension of the hose storage area 222 is slightly larger than the width dimension of the slide weight 252. The particular weight of the slide weight 252 is a matter of design choice and depends on various factors such as the weight of the item to be moved, the strength of the motor used to drive the hose in the Z-direction, and the like. In another embodiment, a spring may be used to connect the slide weight 252 to the bottom of the cabinet 12 to add another tension to the loop tensioning device 250.

It should also be noted that this gravity-based retrieval/hose storage technique can meet both the storage requirements for movement of carriage 218 in the X and Y directions (left/right and front/back) and the requirements for movement of pickup head 224 in the Z direction. Of course, this gravity-based retrieval/hose storage technique may also work well in an embodiment where the automatic hose positioning mechanism employs a swivel-type device (R, θ), an articulated arm, a telescoping or pinch-shear system, or other techniques. Furthermore, the illustrated gravity-based recovery/hose storage technique is not necessary for the present invention, and it is entirely possible to replace the above technique with a fully or partially electrified recovery technique. In addition, in other embodiments, it may be desirable to place the hose storage area in other locations, for example, parallel to the top or back of cabinet 12.

In addition, although only one storage area 215, hose 220 and carriage 218 are shown in the illustrated embodiment, the present invention may also be applied to dispensers/article handlers of the type having multiple storage areas and/or automated article handling mechanisms, such as two automated handling mechanisms (vertically and horizontally, respectively, or a combination of vertically and horizontally), each serving a different storage area. Where multiple article handling mechanisms are employed, each of the mechanisms may be adjusted to suit a particular operation. For example, one of the processing mechanisms may have a relatively large diameter pick-up head and use a high air flow/moderate vacuum while the other processing mechanism may have a relatively small diameter pick-up head and use a low air flow/high vacuum.

In this regard, FIG. 9 illustrates a multi-storage-area configuration 500 in which a merchandise processor of the type described above may service 3 adjacent storage areas. In one embodiment, each area may be used to store a stack of items that are aligned in the same direction in each area. The storage area 502 may be in an atmospheric environment and the other storage areas may be in a refrigerated environment, for example, where one area 504 is a refrigerated area and the other area 506 is a refrigerated area. Such a structure can be found in a typical small, reliable and efficient vending mechanism: the savory snack (e.g., packets of french fries) are located in an atmospheric storage area, the cold drink (e.g., soda) is located in the cold storage area, and the frozen food (e.g., ice cream) is located in the freezing area. In addition, this type of construction is particularly advantageous in that the freezer compartment can be used to maintain the quality of the stored items until they are close to being sold, as determined by an intelligent controller. At a predetermined appropriate time prior to sale, a quantity of the product may be moved from the freezer area to the freezer area. The benefits of this technique can also be found in the case where the third storage area is actually a temporary storage area for heating/cooking items (e.g., frozen pizzas) individually by means of an oven or microwave. In this case, the frozen pizza is not moved to the cold storage area before the cold storage area is exhausted and needs to be replenished again, thereby ensuring the quality/shelf life of the frozen pizza. Thereafter, they are sequentially moved from the freezing zone to the cold storage zone. This technique greatly reduces the heating time of the pizza the customer needs to wait for, while it also allows the storage of the pizza in a frozen manner, thus greatly increasing its shelf life and reducing the labor costs required to fill the machine. In such a configuration, the top of the refrigerated area may include a thermal isolator, such as an air curtain or a sliding insulation panel.

Figure 10 illustrates a configuration in which a single article handling mechanism services two horizontally aligned article storage areas. Background space a region 602 is an atmospheric environment and a region 604 is a refrigerated environment. The article handling mechanism 606 may be constructed using support beams 230 and transport 218 in the manner previously described so that the mechanism 606 can "live" in the ambient area 602 and can be accessed into the refrigerated area 604 through a swing door 608 as needed. Both

areas

602 and 604 have their own article ID device 254 or may share a common ID device.

In addition, separate hoses and hose positioning mechanisms may be used to increase the speed at which stored articles are removed and dispensed to customers. Such a quick goods vending machine is shown in fig. 11, of the type having two horizontally placed storage areas. Although separate hoses and hose positioning mechanisms are used, they may share a single suction source (e.g., blower motor 226), airflow sensor, and vacuum breaker. A single hose, hose positioning mechanism and hose storage area may be utilized in another embodiment of the present invention in which a single hose serves multiple storage areas for items (e.g., refrigerated and non-refrigerated areas of the structure 700 shown in fig. 11), wherein the support beam 230 and transporter 218 are movable between two storage areas having different ambient environments by a door mechanism 702. Each of the automatic article handling mechanisms may have its own article ID device 254 or may share a common ID device 254.

Figure 12 shows a vending machine having a single article handling mechanism with two customer interface areas (each area including a product selection device such as a keypad or touch screen, a payment system and a product removal door), for example, one on the left side and one on the right side with a common graphical display in between. The machine is capable of providing service to both purchasers simultaneously because customer selection and payment typically require substantially the same time as compared to the actual time required for the vending machine to deliver the selected product.

Another such configuration is shown in fig. 13, wherein a cabinet 600 includes an upper area 602 that is a non-refrigerated area (which may even be heated) and a lower area 604 that is a refrigerated area (which may even be divided into, for example, two additional sections, one area 606 being a refrigerated area and the other area 608 being a refrigerated area only). This configuration is particularly advantageous because the hot air is raised upwards and the cold air is lowered downwards. In addition, one storage area may be arranged to store articles vertically, while another area, or even areas, may be arranged to store articles horizontally. In this case, separate hoses, hose positioning mechanisms, and hose storage areas are required for differently oriented storage areas.

It should be noted that in the above structure, the article handling mechanism may also have other structures, such as a telescopic tube, a pinch shear, or an R, θ structure, which will be mentioned later. In addition, the commodity may also be a consumable, such as an office supply, a printer cartridge, or the like.

In the illustrated embodiment, blower motor 226 provides a relatively high amount of airflow and a relatively modest negative air pressure. Blower motor 226 may include a vacuum pump to provide a sufficient degree of negative air pressure as a matter of design choice. However, due to size and cost constraints, the amount of airflow is correspondingly limited. In the latter case, the diameter of the air hose 220 will be smaller than that shown in fig. 2 and 3, which is particularly important in some applications of the present invention. The illustrated embodiment is particularly useful when picking up flexible packages because transient or sustained leakage during the packaging of goods does not typically result in the package falling off, while it also provides an extremely rich variety due to the ability to pick up a wide variety of shaped objects of different weights and sizes. In the case where blower motor 226 includes a vacuum pump, it may be used alone or in combination with a storage compartment connected to the suction hose via a valve or air hose to provide a greater volume of airflow. Alternatively, a compressor and venturi device may be used in combination to create the vacuum.

FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram illustrating the general operation of the techniques described in accordance with aspects of the present invention and as embodied in a merchandise vending machine, such as vending machine 10. As shown in FIG. 4, the control system 400 includes a microprocessor 402 and associated memory circuitry 404, which is mounted on the control board 212. The control system 400 may also suitably include electronics in other portions of the vending machine 10. The memory circuit 404 includes ROM and RAM buffers, the former for storing operating programs (known as embedded software for implementing control of the vending machine 10), and the latter for temporarily storing operating data and other required data during system operation. The control system 400 is responsive to user operation of a payment and selection system 506 (including the coin and banknote mechanisms 28 and 30 and the selection button 40 shown in fig. 1) to process the user interface and article handling devices of the vending machine 10 to dispense the articles desired by the user. More specifically, after the user has made a proper payment for the article of merchandise he or she has selected using the payment and selection system 406, the control system 400 will operate the X/Y (left/right and front/rear) drive motors 508 to align the pickup head 224 with the bin 216 in which the article of merchandise he or she has selected is stored. Control system 400 is then connected to a hose drive motor 410(Z motor) mounted within carriage 218 and moving therewith to drive hose 220 to the top of the article in the aligned bin. Before pickup head 224 is in contact with the articles to be removed for the appropriate time (in one embodiment of the invention, no cool air is present in cabinet 12, which may be immediately before pickup head 224 enters cabinet 216, but if cool air is present, it is desired to be in contact with the desired articles only, for the purpose of reducing the dissipation of cool air), control system 400 activates blower motor 226 to provide a rising suction force to pickup head 224. When position sensor 412 determines that pickup head 224 has made firm contact with the desired article, control system 400 will cause hose drive motor 410 to reverse its direction to withdraw the hose from aligned storage bin 216, thereby extracting the selected article from storage bin 216. The carriage 218 is then driven into alignment with the article delivery chute 210. As the desired article 223 is moved along the aforementioned path from bin 216 to chute 210, it moves past article ID device 254 to uniquely identify and confirm that the article being dispensed is the user-selected article. When sensor 412 detects that carriage 218 has been aligned with chute 210 (in which case sensor 202 may comprise a reed switch mounted on the front wall of the cabinet and a magnet mounted on the leading edge of carriage 218), control system 400 will shut off blower motor 226 and the loss of vacuum will cause the selected article to drop into customer retrieval area 22. As previously described, in the event that the articles are fragile and cannot fall into the retrieval area or be subjected to damaging forces, hose 220 may be driven to the bottom of chute 210 before the articles are released.

It should be noted that the position sensor 412 may comprise an airflow sensor of the air junction box 229, or in another embodiment, it may comprise a mechanically operated plunger-type position sensor associated with the pickup head 224. Alternatively, the position sensor 412 may include a reed switch mounted on the front wall of the cabinet and a magnet mounted on the front edge of the carriage 218.

In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, since the control system keeps track of the movement of hose 220 and carriage 218 (e.g., by detecting pulses from shaft encoders or other distance measuring devices positioned above the respective drive motors), the signal generated by the airflow sensor when carriage 218 reaches a virtual position (virtual home) can be used as a check signal to ensure that control system 400 can accurately count motor drive pulses and, if desired, recalibrate the positioning system based on the virtual position.

It should be noted that the above-described carriage 218 and automatic hose positioning and drive mechanism are particularly useful in a cabinet environment, such as within a vending machine, because it facilitates increased utilization of the storage capacity within the cabinet. More specifically, in situations where, for example, components not associated with storage are mounted or reside inside a cabinet and the "pockets" of the storage area are located in front of or behind these components, the transport device is easily moved to and reach these pockets, thereby making them available for storage of articles.

Connected to the control system 400 is a communication system 414 for providing inventory information of the items and vending machine operation information to the remote device and allowing the remote device to control the operation of the vending machine. In this regard, the communication system 414 may include a connection device for establishing a communication link with a remote computer via a wired and/or wireless transceiver interface. In addition, the communication system 414 may communicate with and between a plurality of other vending machines having similar connection devices located in the same geographic area using wired interfaces or wireless communications. Also, the communication system 414 may provide communication connectivity to a plurality of locally located vending machines and/or local servers/controllers via a LAN (local area network), LAWN (wireless local area network), or WAN (wide area network). The remote computer may include a database that can receive and/or accumulate operational data from one or more vending machines, which can then be accessed by others, such as delivery drivers, machine operators, owners, product suppliers, etc., using appropriate coding (e.g., via the internet, or via a wired or wireless connection). In addition, the remote station may also give feedback information (e.g., authorization information) to the vending machine for controlling its operation to allow it to operate continuously.

Other embodiments of the automatic hose positioning mechanism described above are considered to be within the scope of the present invention. For example, instead of using the combination of the left/right slider 234 and the support beams 236a, 236b described above, a combination of a roller and a rail as shown in fig. 8 may be used. The support beams 236a and 236b may include a support plate 255 having two outwardly facing (i.e., opposing) L-shaped guide rails 256a and 256b along its longitudinal edges. In this embodiment, the function of the slide 234 is accomplished by securing a pair of brackets 258 at opposite ends of the beam 230, each bracket 258 including a pair of spaced, inwardly directed rollers 260 which engage and follow opposed tracks on the support plate 255. Alternatively, each of the pair of spaced apart and inward facing rollers may comprise a set of rollers positioned at a 90 degree angle relative to each other to engage or follow the orthogonal surfaces of the L-shaped rails 256a and 256 b. This configuration allows carriage 218 to couple to beam 230 and requires less adjustment for proper operation. In addition, as previously described, with the bins substantially horizontally aligned, the automated hose positioning mechanism may position the transporter to be movable in a substantially flat vertical plane or in a vertically curved plane (i.e., in the X/Z or Y/Z plane). Additionally, as previously mentioned, in some aspects of the invention, it may be desirable to have the automatic hose positioning mechanism comprise a rotary device (R, θ) of the type comprising an "i" beam (or telescoping portion) of fixed length to impart an "R" shaped motion to the gripper/pick-up head that is pivoted to establish the "θ" shaped motion. Additionally, in other environments of the present invention, the automatic hose positioning mechanism may include an articulated arm, a pinch-shear system, or other techniques.

Precise control of the energization of blower motor 226 is particularly advantageous in situations where the interior of a cabinet, or a portion thereof, is refrigerated, where precise control may reduce the amount of refrigerated air provided by blower motor 226. In the preferred embodiment, microprocessor 402 will energize blower motor 226 when pickup head 224 reaches the desired article, and in fact when it is immediately adjacent to the desired article (and not ahead), because control system 400 maintains up-to-date information regarding the height of the stack of articles in each cabinet 216. This height is assumed to be at a predetermined level when the operator loads the vending machine 10 with goods. The control system 400 may confirm this assumed height by directing the pickup head 224 at a reduced speed toward the items located at the top of the cabinet 216 on the first attempt to pick up items after the storage area is full and then comparing the assumed height to the actual height. The assumed merchandise height may be pre-programmed in memory 404 or the system 400 may learn the height by comparing previous vending heights in the various cabinets. Once the height of the top item is known, the control system 400 can also always know the height of the next "top" item in the cabinet. In addition, the control system 400 enables the pickup head 224 to approach the articles in the storage area at a higher speed and only slow down when the next "top" article in the bin is immediately approaching. The technique of decelerating the pick-up head 224 as the next article is approached also helps to ensure that the stored articles are not damaged by the pick-up head 224.

When the machine operator activates a "reset" switch (not shown), the control system 400 will automatically default to the height detection technique described above, as it can assume that the operator has changed the product loading level and product height in each cabinet.

It should be noted that in an alternative embodiment, a simpler method is described that can be used without knowing the specific product height by turning on the blower motor 226 to control the operation of the blower motor 226 and the proximity of the pickup head 224 or to slow down the pickup head 224 before knowing the stack height of the existing product.

For the various embodiments described herein, it may be assumed that actuation of the blower motor or other suction generating device (or an alternative thereto, such as a vacuum source operating with a valve) is equivalent to the rapid grasping force, i.e., suction, of the package of merchandise by the pickup head 224.

In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, since the control system keeps track of the movement of hose 220 and carriage 218 by sensing pulses from shaft encoders or other distance measuring devices located above the respective drive motors, the signals generated by the switches in airflow junction box 229 when carriage 218 reaches delivery chute 210 can also be used as a check to ensure that control system 400 can accurately count motor drive pulses and, if desired, recalibrate the positioning system based on the virtual position.

Where stored items are susceptible to damage, fragile handling is required, for example when the stored items comprise soft plastic bags of french fries, and modifications to the apparatus are required. For example, in accordance with another aspect of the invention, bellows head 227 (shown in FIG. 2B) includes a corrugated or "bellows" type side that is constructed of a soft, flexible rubber or plastic such that when bellows head 227 contacts a bag to be removed, the rapidly increasing negative air pressure within hose 220 causes the length of bellows head 227 to shrink dramatically. This condition causes the article to momentarily quickly come into contact with the gripper end of pickup head 224 and will cause a slight lift to the package. This hose retrieving/package lifting action is important because the weight 223 on the pick-up head 224 can be significant. This weight may crumple or damage the specialized packaging in the storage area if force contact is made with the packaging. The length of the bellows head 227 and its aggressiveness of "cocking" is a matter of design choice, as a certain time delay/lag is required to brake and stop the z-drive motor (310 in fig. 3), and should be determined by the control system 300 and its corresponding sensors and their associated mechanical linkages to provide a hose retraction amount greater than or equal to the required downward stroke of the pick-up head 224.

Alternatively or in addition to the hose retraction provided by the bellows head 227, a hose 220 may be designed that is sufficiently conformable to provide the desired amount of lift.

According to another aspect of the invention, although speed is important and hose 220 is typically driven at the maximum allowable speed, when handling fragile articles, the speed at which pickup head 224 is driven by control system 400 toward the article to be removed may slow as pickup head 224 approaches the stored article. Since control system 400 maintains up-to-date information regarding the height of the items stored in each stack within bin 10, proper speed control, i.e., deceleration, can be achieved when pickup head 224 is in close proximity to the stored items. This deceleration provides pickup head 224 with some tolerance in its downward and reverse movements, thereby preventing the weight associated therewith from falling into and damaging the fragile item. There is also a similar type of speed control that can be used in the direction of the elevation of pick head 224 to prevent it from falling under carriage 218 and left/right and front/rear ends of the travel of carriage 218.

In addition, the slide 228 extends from the front edge of the beam 230, and such a mechanism for the carriage 218 is particularly advantageous in that it allows the support beam (e.g., the beam 22, which is limited in length) to be moved throughout the entire range, i.e., between the wall-to-wall interior of the cabinet of the vending machine (and behind the corner support plates, brackets, and portions such as portion 208 shown in FIG. 8), and also allows the carriage 218 to extend from the front thereof so that the desired product can be moved into a customer retrieval area that is outside the interior limitations of the vending machine cabinet.

Many of the advantages of the invention described herein will become particularly useful in merchandising equipment of the type that includes refrigerated merchandisers, such as chest freezers having various doors thereon (e.g., the ice cream vending machine described in U.S. patent 5,240,139), by use in conjunction with control of the suction force on the clamp end used to generate and/or maintain the suction hose.

While the invention has been shown and described with reference to a preferred embodiment thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. Indeed, many such modifications have been mentioned herein. Those skilled in the art will recognize, or be able to ascertain using no more than routine experimentation, many equivalents to the specific embodiments of the invention. For example, although only one air-breathing hose 220 is disclosed in the embodiments of the present invention, in practice, solid parts with clamps on their free ends, such as mechanically operated jaws (or electromagnetic devices or generators themselves containing the function of breathing) may be used, and equivalents are also included within the scope of the claims.

Claims

1. An article retrieval device, comprising:

a storage area for storing articles along a plurality of parallel aligned longitudinal axes;

an article retrieval device having a free end for selectively retrieving articles from said article storage area;

a movable positioning mechanism coupled to said article extraction device and responsive to a control signal to move a free end of said article extraction device between at least two points, a first of said points being aligned with a selected one of said longitudinal axes and a second of said points being spaced from said first point, wherein at least a portion of the movement of said positioning mechanism between said first and second points is linear;

a drive mechanism coupled to the article extraction device for moving a free end of the article extraction device in a direction aligned with a longitudinal axis of the storage area; and

a control device coupled to the positioning mechanism and the drive mechanism for causing controlled movement of the article extraction device to extract a selected article from a selected one of the longitudinal axes in the storage area and move to a predetermined area,

wherein

Said article extraction device comprising a continuous flexible member having first and second ends, said first end of said continuous flexible member comprising said free end of said article extraction device, said second end of said continuous flexible member being connected to a point remote from said positioning mechanism; and

the positioning mechanism has a height dimension that is substantially parallel to a longitudinal axis of the article of merchandise and that remains substantially constant during the at least partial movement between the first and second points.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a housing for accommodating said article retrieval device, an

A flexible member providing mechanism for storing an additional length of the flexible member,

wherein,

the flexible member providing mechanism is located in a fixed position within the housing and the point remote from the locating mechanism is located in the flexible member providing mechanism.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 wherein said flexible member is connected at said fixed point to a source for providing commodity fixed energy to said free end.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein said flexure providing mechanism comprises a gravity-induced loop of said flexure.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein said gravity-induced loop is formed by rolling a weight between two parallel spaced walls, the space between the two walls defining the transverse dimension of the flexure support zone.

6. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein said gravity-induced loop has a longitudinal axis aligned parallel to a longitudinal axis in the article storage area.

7. An article retrieval device, comprising:

a movable positioning mechanism coupled to said article extraction device and responsive to a control signal to move a free end of said article extraction device between at least two points, a first of said points being aligned with a selected one of said longitudinal axes and a second of said points being spaced from said first point;

wherein

Said article extraction device including a continuous flexible member from said free end to a point remote from said positioning mechanism; and

the positioning mechanism moves in a plane substantially perpendicular to the longitudinal axis.

8. The apparatus of claim 7 wherein movement of said distal point relative to said positioning mechanism is substantially stationary.

9. The apparatus according to claim 7, wherein said fixing point is located in a flexible member supply area in which an additional length of said flexible member is stored, and

the planar movement of the positioning mechanism causes a substantially planar movement of a portion of the flexible member extending between the positioning mechanism and the flexible member providing region, the two planar movements being substantially parallel to each other.

10. An article retrieval device, comprising:

a movable positioning mechanism coupled to said article extraction device and responsive to a control signal to move a free end of said article extraction device between a first point aligned with a selected one of said longitudinal axes and a second point distal from said first point;

wherein

Said article retrieving means comprising a continuous flexible member having a fixed length from its free end to a fixed point within a flexible member presenting area, said flexible member presenting area storing an additional length of said flexible member and having a position which is stationary relative to movement of said positioning mechanism; and

movement of the positioning mechanism towards or away from the flexible member providing zone causes the flexible member to move into and/or out of the flexible member providing zone, respectively.

11. An apparatus according to claim 10, wherein said controlled movement of said positioning mechanism between said first and second points is a substantially planar movement and movement of said flexible member into and/or out of said flexible member providing region is also a substantially planar movement, said two planar movements being substantially parallel to each other.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein said second point is located within said predetermined area where said selected item may be retrieved by a user of said retrieval device.

13. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein said positioning mechanism has a height dimension that is substantially parallel to a longitudinal axis of said stored articles, said height dimension remaining substantially constant during said movement at least partially between said first and second points.

14. The apparatus of claim 13 wherein said article retrieval device is contained within a housing, said positioning mechanism having a height dimension within a given space of said housing adjacent said article storage area, said plane of movement of said flexible member into and/or out of said flexible member supply area being within said given space of said housing.

15. Apparatus according to claim 1, 7 or 10, wherein the article retrieval apparatus is part of an article dispensing apparatus and comprises:

a user interface and control means for enabling a user of the dispensing apparatus to initiate a product dispensing operation and to cause controlled movement of the product extraction means and the positioning mechanism so that a selected product is dispensed by the dispensing means.

16. Apparatus according to claim 1, 7 or 10, wherein the flexible member of the article extraction device comprises a vacuum hose connected to a vacuum source.

17. The apparatus of claim 1, 7 or 10 wherein said drive means is carried by said positioning mechanism and includes a controllable driven mechanism for frictionally engaging said flexible member to provide controlled movement of the free end thereof into and out of said article storage area.

18. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein a flexible member providing mechanism is used to connect said flexible member to said vacuum source, said flexible member providing mechanism being used to store additional lengths of said flexible member.

19. Apparatus according to claim 18, wherein said additional length of flexible member extends into or out of said flexible member providing means in response to controllable positioning of said free end of said flexible member by said positioning means.

20. Apparatus according to claim 18, wherein said additional length of flexible member extends into or out of said flexible member providing means in response to controllable actuation of said free end by said actuating means.

21. Apparatus as claimed in claim 1, 7 or 10 wherein the article extraction means comprises a hollow tube and vacuum pressure is used to secure the selected article.

22. The apparatus of claim 1, 7 or 10 wherein said article extraction mechanism comprises a fixed member having an article grasping mechanism at one end thereof.

23. Apparatus according to claim 2, 9 or 10, wherein the flexure providing mechanism comprises a gravity-induced loop of the flexure.

24. The apparatus of claim 23 wherein the gravity-induced loop is formed by rolling a weight between two parallel spaced walls, the space between the two walls defining the transverse dimension of the flexure support zone.

25. The apparatus of claim 23 wherein said gravity-induced loop has a longitudinal axis aligned parallel to a longitudinal axis in the article storage area.