GB945348A - Improvements relating to automatic process control means - Google Patents

Abstract

945,348. Conveyers. ELECTRIC & MUSICAL INDUSTRIES Ltd. April 11, 1960 [April 10, 1959], No. 12127/59. Heading B8A. Articles in a moving series, e.g. car bodies 2, 3, on a conveyer or production line 1, are diverted selectively to a different route or/and operated on selectively under control of apparatus which observes information marks of a predetermined kind on the articles and presents the combination of information received from a group of successive articles at any given time to a comparator 9, which compares the combination with a given combination to provide an output, when the combinations agree, for effecting a desired route selection or/and process selection affecting a predetermined article or group of articles in the series. The marks are preferably of a binary nature and comprise e.g. the presence or absence of a daub of whitewash on each article. According to the number of successive articles in a group being observed a chain code of desired length can be formed by the combination of daubs along the series. The daubs on a group of articles in the series are observed either simultaneously by photo-electric devices 4, 5 or in. sequence by a single photoelectric device and the information passed to either a pattern register, in the former case, or a shift register, in the latter case, so that the combination at any given time can be compared with the given combination in the comparator 9. The apparatus may be duplicated &c. where it is desired to read simultaneously marks of different kinds, or in different locations on the articles, for simultaneously selecting different functions, e.g. route selection and subsequent process control.