JP2011067777A - Mail sorting device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To obtain a mail sorting device of a simple constitution, which improves a treatment efficiency as a sortable case without removing even mails having being removed as short gap mails in a certain case. <P>SOLUTION: The mail sorting device is a mail sorting device sorting a plurality of mails continuously running. An interval measuring means measuring a first interval between a first mail and a second mail running before is provided. When the first interval measured by the interval measuring means is narrower than the least interval which is sortable, a second interval between a third mail running before the second mail and the second mail is checked, and the running speed of the second mail is accelerated to expand the first interval when an average interval of the first interval and the second interval is the least interval or more. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a mail sorting apparatus, and more particularly, to a mail sorting apparatus with an improved mechanism for sorting out according to the mail transport state.

  In a mail sorting device, it is desirable to sort mails to be delivered automatically as much as possible from the viewpoint of labor savings. However, since mails that cannot be sorted are usually created, the mail sorting device must be transported downstream for a predetermined reason. An exclusion stacking unit that excludes the judged mail piece is included. The reason why the paper cannot be transported is determined by the customer's specifications, such as mail containing foreign matter, non-standard-size mail, or mail containing metal, or short gap mail, skew mail, or two-piece mail. It may be determined by the specifications on the equipment machine.

  One of the pieces of mail that is rejected for machine reasons as described above is short gap mail. A short gap mail is generally a mail that is transported with the distance between the mails being narrowed for some reason when the mail to be sorted is transported continuously. Further, the gap mail is a mail whose distance from the rear end of the mail that has been transported before is less than a predetermined distance. Such postal items are excluded because there is a possibility that they cannot be sorted normally due to the mechanism of the apparatus.

  Conventionally, for this short gap mail piece, the distance from the previous mail piece is detected, and if this distance is less than a predetermined distance, the sorting mechanism on the device may not function effectively, It was excluded.

  However, if the short gap mails as described above are also excluded, the number of rejected mails increases accordingly, and the processing efficiency of the sorting device decreases.

  A mail interval adjusting device that detects the interval (gap length) between pieces of mail by a sensor and adjusts the interval between pieces of mail by accelerating / decelerating an AC servo motor when the gap length is different from a predetermined length. Etc. are known (see Patent Document 1).

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-19595

  The present invention is a mail sorting apparatus with a simple structure that improves the processing efficiency by making it possible to sort the short gap mail pieces as described above without eliminating them in a fixed case, and further improving the apparatus described in Patent Document 1. The purpose is to provide.

  According to claim 1 of the present invention, there is provided a mail sorting apparatus that sorts a plurality of pieces of mail that run continuously, the first mail piece and a second mail piece that runs before the first mail piece. An interval measuring means for measuring one interval; and a third mail piece traveling before the second mail piece when the first interval measured by the interval means is narrower than a minimum interval that can be sorted. The second interval between the second piece and the second piece is checked, and when the average interval between the first interval and the second interval is equal to or greater than the minimum interval, the traveling speed of the second piece is accelerated to increase the second piece. A mail sorting apparatus characterized by widening one interval is provided.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to obtain a mail sorting apparatus having a simple configuration that improves processing efficiency by making it possible to sort mail pieces that have been conventionally excluded as short gap mail pieces without being excluded in certain cases. it can.

It is a figure which shows the whole structure of the mechanism of the mail sorting apparatus in one Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the control structure of the whole mail sorting apparatus in one Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the electrical structural example of the space | interval correction | amendment part in the mail sorting apparatus of one Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the mechanism structural example of the space | interval correction | amendment part in the mail sorting apparatus of one Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the structural example of the space | interval memory | storage part in FIG. It is a figure for demonstrating the operation | movement of the shift process in the mail sorting apparatus of one Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure for demonstrating the positional relationship of the mail before a shift process is made in the mail sorting apparatus of one Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure for demonstrating the positional relationship of the mailpiece after the shift process was made in the mail sorting apparatus of one Embodiment of this invention.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows the overall configuration of an embodiment of the present invention. This mail sorting apparatus includes a mail supply unit 11, a mail pickup unit 12, a rejection stacking unit 13 on a transport path where mails of a predetermined reason are removed and collected, and a mail to be transported For example, a pre-bar code reading unit 14 for reading a bar code in advance, a character recognizing unit 15 for recognizing characters printed and written on a postal item, a delay conveying unit 16 for delaying a postal item to be conveyed, A printing unit 17 that prints on a mail piece by ink jet, a verification fiber code reading unit 18 that checks a barcode, a branching unit 19 that sorts mail pieces, and a plurality of stackers 20 in which the sorted mail pieces are put. Have.

  The delay conveyance unit 16 performs a VCS (Video Coding System) process on the postal matter that cannot be read by the character recognition unit 15 by displaying an image of the postal item on the monitor and manually typing the postal code within a predetermined time by the operator. It is a transport unit for earning time.

  The printing unit 17 prints the zip code information based on the pre-bar code reading unit 14, the character recognition unit 15, and the VCS keying information as a special format barcode, and the contents are rechecked by the VERIFYBER code reading unit 18. Is done.

  Thereafter, the final destination stacker is determined and sent to the branching unit 19 for accumulation in the corresponding stacker, and the gates are driven to perform distribution to each stage. The sorted mail items are conveyed to the stacker 20 and accumulated in each stacker according to the final destination result.

  By the way, when the mail pieces before being sorted are being conveyed, the gap between the mail pieces may be narrowed or widened for some reason. An interval correction mechanism 41 for correcting the interval between postal items, which will be described later, is provided in front of the branching portion 19.

  In short, this embodiment of the present invention detects that the distance Gi between a certain mail item Mi traveling and the mail item Mi-1 traveling earlier is smaller than the predetermined distance Gmin, and the previous mail. When the interval Gi-1 with the postal item Mi-2 further ahead is relatively wide, the traveling speed of the specific post Mi is accelerated so that both intervals are wider than Gmin (see FIGS. 7 and 8). ). Such processing is referred to as postal mail shift processing here.

  FIG. 2 shows an electrical control configuration of the entire mail sorting apparatus shown in FIG. This control system includes an overall control unit 21, a supply / withdrawal control unit 22 that controls the vicinity of a postal item supply / extraction unit, an exclusion detection control unit 23 that excludes foreign matter-contaminated mail, short gap postal items, etc. A reading interface (I / O) control unit 24 for exchanging information, a print control unit 25 for controlling barcode printing of information obtained from a postal code, and the like, and transporting postal items to a predetermined stacker It includes a transport stack control unit 26 for stacking and a display panel control unit 27 that performs control to display postal information and abnormal information.

  A postal interval correction unit according to an embodiment of the present invention described below is a part controlled by the exclusion detection control unit 23. An example of the electrical configuration of the interval correction unit is shown in FIG. The interval correction unit 31 includes an interval calculation unit 32 that calculates the interval of mail pieces, an interval storage unit 33 that stores the interval of mail items calculated by the interval calculation unit 32, and a mail item calculated by the interval calculation unit 32. A short gap determination unit 34 that determines whether or not the interval is narrower than a predetermined value and outputs a speed control signal to that effect, and a travel control unit that controls the travel of the conveyor belt based on the speed control signal 35, a conveyance motor 36 that is driven and controlled by the travel control unit 35, a rotation drive roller 37a that is rotationally controlled by the conveyance motor 36, a rotation driven roller 37b that is driven to rotate in accordance with the rotation drive roller 37a, and a short gap A post-correction interval calculation unit 38 that calculates an interval after changing the short gap determined by the determination unit 34 and outputs the post-correction interval to the interval storage unit 33; A.

  FIG. 4 shows an example of the mechanical configuration of the mail interval correction unit shown in FIG. In FIG. 1, mails are conveyed from right to left, but it should be noted that in FIG. 4, they are illustrated as being conveyed from left to right.

  The interval correction mechanism 41 includes a transport belt 43 that contacts and moves the postal matter 42, a belt drive motor 44 (corresponding to the transport motor 36) that drives the transport belt 43, and movement of the postal matter 42. It has an encoder 45 for measuring the amount, an interval measuring sensor 46 for measuring the interval between the postal items 42, and an exclusion gate 47 for excluding the corresponding postal items when the interval cannot be widened. The conveyor belt 43 travels between the rotation drive rollers 37a and 37b shown in FIG.

  Incidentally, as shown in FIG. 5, the interval storage unit 33 is provided with a shift information area 50 for each piece of mail that travels. Each of these areas includes an area 51 of the postal matter reference number Mi, an immediately preceding interval area 52 in which an interval Gi between the postal item Mi-1 immediately before the postal item is stored, and an interval Gi between the postal items before that. It has an immediately preceding interval area 53 where -1 is stored.

  As shown in FIG. 7, the postal items are traveling at subordinates Mi-2, Mi-1, Mi, and Mi + 1. In FIG. 7, the encoder 71 counts from the rear end of the mail piece to the front end of the next mail piece by a counter to obtain an interval. The exclusion gate 72 is an exclusion gate that excludes the postal matter because the postal interval is a short gap, and the shift process cannot be performed when the preceding interval is not a predetermined size. The acceleration device 73 is a mechanism that normally moves a mail piece at a constant speed, but increases the running speed of the mail piece for a predetermined time when a short gap is detected. The acceleration device 73 includes at least the conveyance motor 36, the rotation driving roller 37a, and the rotation driven roller 37b shown in FIG.

  Next, the operation of the embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 7 and 8 according to the flowchart shown in FIG.

  When starting, first, in step S600, the maximum value is set in the immediately preceding interval area 52 of the shift information area of the first mail M1. This is a large opening in front of the first mail piece, so if the distance between the first mail piece and the second mail piece is narrow, the first mail piece is moved forward ( It is possible to shift).

  In step S601, the encoder 71 detects the rear end of the traveling mail piece. Unless the trailing edge of the mail is detected, the trailing edge detection is continued. When the rear end is detected, the encoder counts up using a counter (step S602).

  Next, in step S603, the encoder 71 detects the front end of the next mail piece. When the front end is detected, the encoder 71 stops counting in the next step S604. In step S603, the count by the encoder 71 is continued unless the front end of the next mail is detected.

  In step 605, an interval Gi before the mail piece Mi is calculated from the measured count value by the encoder 71, and is stored as an interval 52 with the immediately preceding mail piece in the shift information area of the mail piece Mi. In step S606, the short gap determination unit 34 determines whether or not the calculated interval Gi is shorter than the shortest interval Gmin that can be normally sorted.

  If the calculation interval Gi is equal to or greater than the shortest interval Gmin, the process returns to step S601 and continues to detect the trailing edge of the next mail piece that travels. If it is detected in step S606 that Gi is smaller than Gmin, the process proceeds to step S607. In step S607, the interval Gi-1 between the previous mail items is read from the area 53 immediately before the shift information area of the mail item Mi stored in the interval storage unit 33, and the sum of these intervals G and Gi-1 is read. Is divided by 2 and the shortest interval Gmin is compared (step S608). This means that when the mail item Mi-1 is moved forward, it is checked whether or not both intervals can be equal to or greater than the shortest interval Gmin.

  If the average value of the intervals is smaller than the shortest interval Gmin, it is not possible to leave a sufficient interval even if the mail item Mi-1 is moved forward. Therefore, the mail item Mi is excluded by the exclusion gate 72 (step S609). ).

  On the other hand, when the average value of the intervals is equal to or greater than the shortest interval Gmin, the process proceeds to step S610. In step S610, the interval between the mail item Mi-1 and the previous mail item when the mail item Mi-1 is moved forward, and the interval with the previous mail item are stored again in the areas 52 and 53 shown in FIG. It will be. At the same time, the short gap determination unit 34 sends a speed control signal to the travel control unit 35 to inform how much time or the like can be made before or after the previously examined interval if the mail speed is accelerated. In accordance with this control signal, the traveling control unit 35 sends an acceleration instruction signal to the transport motor 36. The rotation driving roller 37a increases the rotation speed in accordance with this instruction. As to how much the mail item Mi-1 is shifted forward, for example, the interval before and after the mail item Mi-1 is set to be equal. In this way, there is an advantage that a shoe gap is less likely to occur even if it moves a little in the subsequent processing.

  FIG. 8 shows that the conveyance speed of the mail item Mi-1 is accelerated by the acceleration mechanism 73, the preceding interval Gi-1 is changed to Gi-1 ', and the subsequent interval is changed from Gi to Gi'.

  In this way, when the distance before the specific mail piece is narrow and the distance before the specific mail piece is wide, the previous mail piece is moved (shifted) forward, so that it is less likely to be eliminated by the short gap. It becomes possible.

  According to the above-described embodiment, the interval between the mail items is only the previous interval and the previous interval. Therefore, the interval stored in the interval storage unit can be relatively small, and a memory with a small storage capacity can be used.

  In addition, according to this embodiment, since the mail piece is only increased in traveling speed and the previous mail piece is shifted to the front, the interval between the postal piece and the subsequent mail piece is reduced. There is no narrowing of the space in front of

  The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment and can be implemented with various modifications. These modifications are also included in the present invention as long as the technical idea of the present invention is used.

11... Supply section,
12... Take-out part,
13... Exclusion stacking unit,
14... Pre-bar code reader,
15... Character recognition unit,
16... Delay conveyance section,
17 ... Printing section,
18... Berrifiber code reader,
19...
20 ... Stacker,
21... Overall control unit,
22... Supply take-out control unit,
23... Exclusion detection control unit,
24... Reading interface (I / O) controller,
25... Print control unit,
26... Transport accumulation control unit,
27... Display panel control unit,
31... Interval correction unit,
32... Interval calculation unit,
33... Interval storage unit,
34... Short gap determination section,
35... Travel controller,
36... Transport motor,
37a... Rotation drive roller,
37b... Rotation driven roller,
38... Corrected interval calculation section,
41... Interval correction mechanism,
42 ... Mail,
43... Conveyor belt,
44... Belt drive motor,
45... Encoder,
46 .... Interval measuring sensor,
47 ... Exclusion gate,
71.. .Encoder,
72 .. exclusion gate,
73 ... Accelerator.

Claims (2)

A mail sorting apparatus that sorts a plurality of pieces of mail that run continuously,
A distance measuring means for measuring a first distance between the first mail piece and the second mail piece traveling in front of the first mail piece;
When the first interval measured by the interval means is narrower than the minimum interval that can be sorted, the distance between the third mail piece traveling before the second mail piece and the second mail piece The mail is characterized in that the second interval is checked, and when the average interval between the first interval and the second interval is equal to or greater than the minimum interval, the traveling speed of the second mail piece is accelerated to widen the first interval. Sorting device. A mail sorting apparatus that sorts a plurality of pieces of mail that run continuously,
Measure a first distance between the first mail piece and a second mail piece traveling in front of the first mail piece and a second distance between the second mail piece and a third mail piece traveling in front of the second mail piece. Interval measuring means;
Storage means for storing the first interval and the second interval measured by the interval means;
An interval comparison unit that compares the first interval stored by the storage unit with a minimum interval that can be sorted;
When the interval comparing means determines that the first interval is narrower than the minimum interval, the second interval is read from the storage means, and the average interval of the first interval and the second interval is compared with the minimum interval. An average comparison means to
The mail sorting unit comprising: a travel accelerating unit that accelerates a traveling speed of the second mail piece to widen the first interval when the average interval is equal to or greater than the minimum interval. apparatus.