EP3797882B1 - Installation for sorting postal parcels or packages - Google Patents

Description

Technical area

The present invention relates to a sorting installation for articles such as parcels or small postal packages, comprising a sorting carousel conveyor with transport buckets for the articles which are moved in a closed loop over a plurality of sorting outlets. formed respectively of storage receptacles, an article supply store in which articles stored in bulk are serialized and then injected one by one into the transport buckets of the moving conveyor, and a control / command unit which acts on the buckets transport of the conveyor containing an article to open each above a receptacle which corresponds to a distribution address of the article according to a sorting plan kept in memory in the control / command unit.

This type of installation is particularly known from patent documents. DE-A-102015200618 and US-A-2008/0000817 .

The present invention relates more particularly to an installation for sorting in several sorting passes and more particularly in two sorting passes to a large number of directions or destinations.

The large number of directions or destinations is of the order of several thousand.

These directions or destinations correspond to the different delivery routes of parcels or postal packages of a country or a region within a country.

Prior art

Parcel sorting can currently be done distributed over several sorting centers, for example a main arrival center for parcels in a country where sorting is carried out and distribution centers in different regions of the country where it is carried out. sorting distribution.

The problem with current parcel sorting facilities is that parcels are not really sorted by distribution route and that the sorting of parcels must be refined manually.

The aim of the invention is to provide a sorting installation for parcels or postal packages such as small international parcels (PPI) which allows sorting, routing and distribution in a centralized manner on a single site to promote the efficiency of automation and ease of delivery of parcels and packages over a large number of directions.

Another object of the invention is to provide a multi-pass sorting installation for parcels or postal packages which has a small footprint for a large number of sorting outlets.

Summary of the invention

To this end, the invention relates to an installation for the sorting of articles comprising a sorting carousel conveyor with transport buckets of the articles which are moved in a closed loop above a plurality of sorting outlets formed. respectively of storage receptacles, an article supply store in which articles stored in bulk are serialized and then injected one by one into the transport buckets of the moving conveyor, and a control / command unit which acts on the transport buckets of the sorting conveyor containing an article to open them each above a receptacle which corresponds to a distribution address of the article according to a plan sorting unit kept in memory in the control / command unit, characterized in that the control / command unit is arranged to carry out the sorting of the articles in the receptacles of the sorting outlets in several sorting passes, in that when of a first sorting pass, the articles are sorted in first sorting output receptacles with a high bulk storage capacity and in that during a subsequent sorting pass, the articles are sorted in second output receptacles sorters which have a smaller bulk storage capacity than the first receptacles.

• les premiers réceptacles sont des containers et les seconds réceptacles sont des bacs ou des sacs.
• les premiers et seconds réceptacles sont des réceptacles roulants.
• plusieurs réceptacles roulants disposés en file servent une même sortie de tri, la file de réceptacles étant déplacée sous la sortie de tri au fur et à mesure du remplissage des réceptacles avec des articles.
• elle comprend des robots-navettes pilotés en déplacement par l'unité de contrôle/commande pour accoster lesdits réceptacles roulants et les entraîner en déplacement sous les sorties de tri.
• l'unité de contrôle/commande est agencée pour piloter en déplacement les robots/navettes de façon à amener les premiers réceptacles remplis d'articles des sorties de tri vers le magasin d'alimentation.
• les godets du convoyeur de tri se présentent chacun comme un plateau rectangulaire muni d'un rebord escamotable sur un côté, et en ce que les articles sont injectés latéralement sur les plateaux qui sont placés en position inclinée pendant l'injection.
• le magasin d'alimentation comporte en sortie de sérialisation des articles, un convoyeur à plat qui s'étend entre deux sections opposées de la boucle.

This installation may also have the following peculiarities:

• the first receptacles are containers and the second receptacles are bins or bags.
• the first and second receptacles are rolling receptacles.
• several rolling receptacles arranged in a line serve the same sorting outlet, the line of receptacles being moved under the sorting outlet as the receptacles are filled with articles.
• it comprises robot-shuttles driven in movement by the control / command unit to accost said rolling receptacles and drive them in movement under the sorting outlets.
• the control / command unit is arranged to drive the robots / shuttles on the move so as to bring the first receptacles filled with articles from the sorting outlets to the food store.
• the buckets of the sorting conveyor are each presented as a rectangular tray provided with a retractable rim on one side, and in that the articles are injected laterally on the trays which are placed in an inclined position during the injection.
• the feed store comprises at the output of the serialization of the articles, a flat conveyor which extends between two opposite sections of the loop.

Items are parcels or postal packets such as small international packets.

Brief presentation of the drawings

• The figure 1 is a schematic view of a sorting installation according to the invention.
• The figure 2 shows article conveyor trays with sorting outlet receptacles.
• The figure 3 shows an injector for injecting articles into the transport buckets of the sorting conveyor.

The invention is explained below in more detail and illustrated by the drawings which show an example of an installation for sorting parcels or postal packages.

Description of the embodiments

On the figure 1 , there is schematically illustrated a sorting installation 1 according to the invention for here for example small international packages called "PPI" which each have a general parallelepipedal shape and a weight of less than 3 kg.

Sorting installation 1 includes a sorting conveyor carousel 2 with transport buckets 3 here in the form of rectangular trays with flange or retractable flap on one side more visible on the figure 2 .

These transport buckets 3 are moved while being inclined in a closed loop above a plurality of sorting outlets formed by storage receptacles 4 open on the top and arranged here on two parallel and opposite strands of the loop.

The sorting installation 1 further comprises a supply store 5 in packages with a hopper 6 in which the packages P to be sorted are stored in bulk.

On leaving the hopper, the packages are serialized, for example at a constant pitch, with a view to being injected onto the trays of the sorting conveyor.

On the figure 1 , there is very schematically illustrated a device 7 for taking digital images which forms an image of each serialized packet in the store 5 and which from this image automatically recognizes by OCR an indication of the distribution or delivery address of the packet .

The serialized packages are conveyed from the supply store 5 to an injection device 8 where the packages are injected one by one into empty transport buckets of the sorting conveyor (here therefore inclined trays with retractable flaps).

A control / command unit 9 of the installation shown in figure 1 from the address data recognized by the device 7 acts on the transport buckets of the sorting conveyor containing packages to open them (here by tilting the flap 10 of the plate as illustrated on the figure 2 ) each above a receptacle 4 which corresponds to the distribution address of the packet in a sorting plan maintained in memory in the control / command unit.

During the opening of the bucket, that is to say the tilting of the flap 10 of the tray, the package falls by gravity into the corresponding receptacle located just below.

The packages are conveyed in series from the store 5 to the injection device 8 here by a flat conveyor 13 such as a belt or roller conveyor illustrated in the figures. figures 1 and 3 .

In the example shown on figure 1 , the conveyor 13 passes under the loop of the sorting conveyor and extends longitudinally between the two opposite parallel strands of the loop of the sorting conveyor, which contributes to the compactness of the sorting installation according to the invention.

The packages are injected here onto the trays of the sorting conveyor from the inner side of the loop of the sorting conveyor here by means of piston pushers 11 which are illustrated on the figure. figure 3 .

As visible on the figure 3 , the rectangular trays 3 which circulate in a loop above the sorting outlets while being inclined (tray indicated by the reference 3 'on the figure 3 ), are tilted in a horizontal position (like the 3 "plate illustrated on the figure 3 ) at the time of injection of a package on the tray and therefore the injection is done by sliding the package perpendicular to the sorting conveyor.

We also illustrated on the figure 3 a receptacle 4 at the end of the injection device which is used to recover the packets P which could not be injected on the trays of the sorting conveyor.

According to the invention, the sorting plan which is rolled out by the control / command unit 9 in the sorting installation 1 is a multi-pass sorting plan and here in particular a two-pass sorting plan.

According to this sorting plan, during the first sorting pass, the P packets serialized in the store are first sorted in the first receptacles with a high bulk storage capacity, that is to say for example several hundred packets. PPI.

In this first sorting pass, the packages P are separated, for example, into postman rounds batches.

A receptacle with a high bulk storage capacity is shown on the figure 1 by reference 4A.

A receptacle 4A may for example be a container.

At the end of this first sorting pass, the containers filled with packages sorted in the first pass are moved by shuttle robots 12 at the supply inlet of the installation to be placed again in the hopper 5.

These shuttle robots are controlled by the control / command unit 9 to move in particular from a storage area for shuttle robots to the sorting outlets of the installation or even from the sorting outlets to the food store of installation or to a storage area for empty or full receptacles.

During the second sorting pass, the P packets are sorted in second sorting output receptacles with a smaller bulk storage capacity than that of the receptacles 4A, for example a few tens of PPI packets.

In this second sorting pass, the packets P are separated, for example, by the postman's tour.

A low capacity bulk storage receptacle is shown on figure 1 by reference 4B.

A receptacle 4B may for example be a bin or a bag.

The receptacles 4A and 4B are rolling receptacles or mounted on rolling carts. The bags are carried by rolling carts in the form of a gallows, the top of the bag being held open at the top of the gallows.

After the second sorting pass, the receptacles 4B filled with packages can be grouped together by destination and by time slot to be transported using shuttle robots to a distribution depot.

The first sorting pass in receptacles with a high bulk storage capacity makes it possible to simplify the storage and replenishment of the installation, while the second sorting pass in receptacles with a lower bulk storage capacity makes it possible to adapt these second receptacles to the volume of a postman's round, for example, and which can be grouped together in larger containers to be transported by truck.

The control / command unit 9 is thus configured to control the discharge of the transport buckets 3 at successive locations which correspond to the size of the successive receptacles along the sorting conveyor and at the same time to control the movement of the shuttle robots 12. so that they put the appropriate receptacles under the appropriate sorting outlets.

In this installation 1 and as illustrated on figure 1 , one can possibly affect in the plan of sorting of the first sorting outlets at the first receptacles 4A and of the second sorting outlets at the second receptacles 4B with the first outlets different from the second outlets so as to engage the second sorting pass before the end of the first sorting pass and to accelerate thus the sorting process.

According to the invention, the packet sorting process can comprise several successive sorting passes in receptacles 4A and several sorting passes in receptacles 4B.

In the installation 1 according to the invention, several rolling receptacles (of the type 4A or 4B) indicated by the references 4 ', 4 "4"' can be arranged in line to serve the same sorting outlet as illustrated in the figure. figure 2 and a system may be provided for moving the queue of receptacles under the sorting outlet as the receptacles in the queue are filled.

This makes it possible to further increase the sorting capacities of the installation according to the invention.

With the sorting installation according to the invention, it is possible to design mixed sorting outlets capable of receiving large and small receptacles 4A and 4B. The number of sorting outlets in the installation depends on the length of the sorting conveyor loop and the size of the receptacles placed under the sorting conveyor loop.

It is understood that the control / command unit 9 keeps in memory the topography of the sorting outlets in order to be able to sort in the sorting outlet receptacles.

The batches of first pass rounds are made up for example with complete shipments, that is to say tour groups to be grouped together in the same transport containers.

If we consider that the installation can separate n lots in the first sorting pass and that each lot is separated into m rounds, the total number of rounds that can be separated is given by the expression nxm.

An installation according to the invention with 64 mixed sorting outlets makes it possible to separate approximately 4000 rounds.

It should be noted that this sorting installation according to the invention can support the sorting of parcels and packages with in addition large format flat postal objects.

This sorting installation is very suitable for replacing a conventional mail sorting installation already in place in a postal sorting center, for example.

The architecture of the sorting installation according to the invention makes it possible to expect high sorting throughputs of the order of 10,000 packages or packages per hour.

Claims (9)

1. An installation for sorting articles (P), which installation comprises a carousel sorting conveyor (2) having article transport bins (3) that are moved around a closed loop over a plurality of sorting outlets formed by respective storage receptacles (4), an article feed magazine (5) in which bulk stored articles are put into series and then injected one-by-one into the transport bins of the conveyor while it is moving, and a monitoring and control unit (9) that acts on the bins of the sorting conveyor so as to open each of them over a receptacle that corresponds to a delivery address of the article following a sorting plan stored in a memory in the monitoring and control unit, said installation being characterized in that the monitoring and control unit is arranged to run the sorting into the receptacles of the sorting outlets in a plurality of passes, in that, during a first sorting pass, the parcels are sorted into first receptacles (4A) that are of high bulk storage capacity, and in that, during a subsequent sorting pass, the parcels are sorted into second sorting outlet receptacles (4B) that are of smaller bulk storage capacity than the first receptacles.
2. An installation according to claim 1, characterized in that the first receptacles are containers and the second receptacles are trays or bags.
3. An installation according to claim 1 or claim 2, characterized in that the first and second receptacles are wheeled receptacles.
4. An installation according to any preceding claim, characterized in that a plurality of wheeled receptacles disposed in line serve the same sorting outlet, the line of receptacles being moved under the sorting outlet as the receptacles are filled with articles.
5. An installation according to any preceding claim, characterized in that it further comprises shuttle robots caused to move by the monitoring and control unit to dock with said wheeled receptacles and to drive them to move under the sorting outlets.
6. An installation according to claim 5, characterized in that the monitoring and control unit is arranged to cause the shuttle robots to move in such a manner as to bring the first receptacles filled with articles from the sorting outlets to the feed magazine.
7. An installation according to any preceding claim, characterized in that each of the bins of the sorting conveyor is in the form of a rectangular platform equipped with a rim that is retractable on one side, and in that the articles are injected sideways onto the platforms that are placed in a tilted position during the injection.
8. An installation according to any preceding claim, characterized in that, at the outlet via which the articles as put in series exit, the feed magazine has a conveyor (13) for conveying articles flat, which conveyor extends between two opposite segments of the loop.
9. An installation according to any preceding claim, characterized in that the articles are postal parcels or packets.

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