JPH08231082A - Paper sheet handling device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To surely divide paper sheets carried at high speed by detecting the tip of carried paper sheets through a tip position detecting means, and control ling the changing over of a gate according to tip position information for obtaining an accurate tip position. CONSTITUTION: The number of encoder pulses at the time when the tip of a note arrives at a S-sensor 32 at a skew angle being O is EO, and when the number of pulses becomes EO+eT=EO+(Lg-VT)/h, an opening/closing command is transmitted to a gate. At the time of the skew of the note, the number of pulses EI in the case of the tip of the note detected by a T-sensor 33 is used, and the number of pulses EO when the tip 36 of the note arrives at the position of the S-sensor 32 is EO'=EI-LI/h, and a gate channging over timing position is computed on EO'. In this case, each letter designates such meaning as follows, V: carrying speed, T: gate changing over time, Lg: a distance from the S-sensor 32 to the tip 34 of a gate, eT: the number of pulses when the note moves from the S-sensor 32 to a gate changing over timing position 35, h: the moved quantity of the note per pulse, and LI: a distance from the S-sensor 32 to a T-sensor 33.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a paper sheet handling device such as an automated teller machine used by financial institutions.
In particular, the present invention relates to a paper sheet handling apparatus having a mechanism for transferring paper sheets at a high speed and switching the transfer destination depending on the type of paper sheets and the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art There is a strong demand for speeding up of processing in paper handling devices such as automated teller machines that are currently widespread, and accordingly, speeding up of transportation is devised. In order to speed up the conveyance, what is particularly a bottleneck is the timing of control of the gate that switches the destination of the paper sheet. In the paper sheet handling apparatus, generally, there are many gates, and if the control timing of these many gates cannot be accurately performed, the paper sheets may be damaged and cannot be put into practical use. In a paper sheet handling apparatus having one or more gates for switching the destination of paper sheets, a technique for switching the gates without damaging the paper sheets has been disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 63-176247. There is something. In the one disclosed in this publication, two destination switching gate driving mechanisms for the transport path are provided on the same axis, and two passage sensors for detecting paper sheets are also provided for each gate. The gates are individually switched by the output of the passage sensor.

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In the prior art method described in the above publication, in order to prevent damage to paper sheets,
It is necessary to provide two drive mechanisms for each gate and two pass sensors for detecting paper sheets for each gate. Therefore, in a device in which the destination of the transport path is divided into a plurality of parts and a plurality of switching gates are required to be provided, the above method has a problem that the cost is increased. In addition, when a bill is greatly skewed (inclined), the position of the bill detected by the passage sensor and the position of the actual tip of the bill may deviate, so when the gate is controlled by the position of the bill detected by the passage sensor. Not only is it not possible to switch banknotes accurately, but there is also the problem that jams may occur and the banknotes may be damaged. An object of the present invention is to optimize the gate switching timing by detecting an accurate leading edge position of a paper sheet in any conveyance state with one set of sensors even when there is one gate drive mechanism provided for each gate. As a result, multiple gates are controlled based on the information obtained from one set of sensors, and the paper sheets that are being conveyed at high speed are reliably sorted, and damage to the paper sheets at the gate portion and jam prevention are performed. It is to plan.

[0004]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the paper sheet handling apparatus of the present invention is a conveyance path for conveying paper sheets (2, 4, 6, 7, etc. in FIG. 1). And at least one tip position detecting means (21 in FIG. 2, FIG. 3, and FIG. 5) for detecting the tip position of the paper sheet on the conveyance path over a plurality of positions in the width direction (direction orthogonal to the conveyance path). 33) and one or more transport gates for switching the transport direction of paper sheets (such as 15 to 20 in FIG. 1).
And a control unit (26 in FIG. 2) that controls the gate switching timing based on the leading edge position information of the paper sheet detected by the leading edge position detecting means. Further, in addition to the front end position detecting means (21 in FIG. 2), a passage position detecting means (22 in FIG. 2, 32 in FIG. 3 and FIG. 5) for detecting passage of paper sheets on the conveying path is further provided, and the control is performed. Characterized in that the timing of gate switching is controlled on the basis of the passing position information of the paper sheet detected by the passing position detecting means and the leading edge position information of the bill detected by the leading edge position detecting means. There is.

[0005]

According to the present invention, the leading edge position detecting means (image sensor) detects the leading edge of the sheet conveyed by the conveying path, and the switching of the gate is controlled by the detected leading edge position information. Is skewed greatly, and it is possible to accurately determine the bill tip position regardless of the shape of the paper sheet, and it is possible to reliably sort the paper sheets being conveyed at high speed, It is possible to prevent paper sheet damage and jams at the gate.

[0006]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 shows a paper sheet handling apparatus which is an embodiment of the present invention. A general processing operation in the paper handling apparatus will be described with reference to this figure. First, the deposit transaction will be described. In case of deposit transaction,
The user inserts a bill into the deposit / withdrawal port 1. The inserted banknotes are separated one by one by a separating mechanism (not shown) in the deposit / withdrawal port section 1, and are conveyed by the transport path 2 to the gates 18, 1.
It passes through 9 and 20 and is conveyed to the discrimination unit 3. The discriminating unit 3 discriminates the denomination, the authenticity, the damage, the number of sheets, etc. of the conveyed banknotes, obtains the discrimination information and the position information, and then sends the banknotes to the conveyance path 4. Then, using the obtained discrimination information and position information, the banknotes conveyed from the conveyance path 4 by the gate 15 are distributed to the destinations. That is, when the discriminating unit 3 determines normal, the gate 15
Is switched to the side of the transport path 4a, the bills are transported to the temporary stacking unit 5 through the transport paths 4a and 4b and stacked. When the discrimination unit 3 determines that the bill is abnormal, the bank 15 (reject bill) is transported to the deposit / withdrawal port unit 1 through the transport route 7 by switching the gate 15 to the transport route 7 side, and is temporarily accumulated. And then returned to the user.

When the deposit transaction of the user is completed, the banknotes are separated by the separating mechanism of the temporary stacking unit 5 (not shown), and are transported to the discrimination unit 3 again through the transport path 6. The conveyed banknotes are discriminated again by the discrimination section 3 and sent to the conveyance path 4. The banknotes (normal banknotes) determined to be normal by the inspection unit 3 are transported to the transport paths 7 and 2 by switching the gate 15 to the transport path 7 side. The banknotes transported are
Sorted by denomination by gates 18, 19, 20
They are classified and stored in denomination boxes 8, 9 and 10.
Further, the banknotes (reject banknotes) determined to be abnormal by the inspection unit 3 pass through the transfer paths 4a and 4b by switching the gate 15 to the transfer path 4a side, and are accumulated and stored in either of the reject boxes 13 and 14. The above is the deposit transaction processing.

Next, the withdrawal transaction operation will be described. In the case of a withdrawal transaction, the required number of banknotes are separated from each denomination box 8, 9, 10 by the denomination boxes 8, 9, 10 by a separating mechanism (not shown) and passed through the transport path 2. , And is conveyed to the discrimination section 3. When it is determined that the bill is normal as a result of the discrimination in the discrimination unit 3, the banknote (normal banknote) is conveyed to the deposit / withdrawal port unit 1 through the conveyance path 7 by switching the gate 15 to the conveyance path 7 side. After being accumulated, it is released to the user. In addition, when it is determined that the banknote (reject banknote) is abnormal as a result of the discrimination by the discriminating unit 3, the reject box 1 is rejected by switching the gate 15 to the transport path 4a side.
It is transported to either 3 or 14, and is stored in a stack. In addition, when the remaining amount of banknotes in the denomination boxes 8, 9, 10 becomes small, the banknotes are set in the removable banknote cassette 11, the separator 12 is retracted, and the banknotes in the banknote cassette 11 are illustrated in the banknote cassette 11 in the drawing. Separation is performed by a separation mechanism that is not provided, the bill passes through the conveying path 6, the bill is discriminated by the discriminating unit 3, and discrimination information is obtained. For a normal bill, the gate 15 is switched to the conveying passage 7 side, so that Two
The bills are stored in the denomination boxes 8, 9, and 10 for each denomination, and bill replenishment processing or loading processing is performed.

When any one of the denomination boxes 8, 9 and 10 is full, the denomination boxes 8, 9 and 1 are full.
Banknotes are fed from 0, passed through the transport path 2, and the discrimination section 3
To obtain the identification information and the position information, pass through the transport path 4,
The gate 15 is switched to the transport path 4a side, the transport path 4b is passed, and the banknotes are stored in the banknote cassette 11 for collection processing. Further, it is possible to collect all the banknotes and perform a close inspection to count and confirm the amount of the banknotes in the banknote handling apparatus. Further, the banknotes are sequentially moved while passing through the discrimination section 3 through the denomination boxes 8, 9, 10 and the banknote cassette 11,
It is also possible to perform a scrutiny process for counting and confirming the amount of banknotes in the banknote handling device. In each of the storage processing, the replenishment processing, the loading processing, the collection processing, and the close inspection processing, it is determined that the banknotes go to the denomination boxes 8, 9, 10 and the banknote cassette 11 as normal banknotes as a result of the discrimination by the discrimination section 3. The banknotes (rejected banknotes) determined to be abnormal in any of the above processes are sorted by the gate 15 or the gate 16 after the discrimination information and the positional information are detected by the discrimination section 3, and the conveyance path 4a, 4c is passed, and it is accumulated and stored in either reject box 13 or 14. In the paper sheet handling device configured in this way,
In each process, in order to convey the destination of the banknote to a different stacking unit, an operation of switching each gate frequently occurs.

FIG. 2 shows an example of a hardware configuration relating to gate switching control according to the present invention. The position sensor 22 (passage position detection means) for detecting the position of the bill on the transport path outputs a dark signal to the control unit 26 when the bill passes on the sensor, and a light signal before and after the bill passes on the sensor. .
The encoder 24 is connected to the drive unit of the transport path,
The pulse signal 25 is output to the control unit 26 according to the movement amount of the transport path. The discrimination mechanism 21 is provided with a position sensor and an image sensor, and outputs the bill status (discrimination information) on the conveyance path such as the thickness, length, and size of the passing bill to the control unit 26. The control unit 26 calculates the position of the banknote by accumulating the number of encoder pulses from the change point of the light signal / dark signal of the position sensor 22. In addition, the discrimination mechanism 21
The image sensor (front end position detecting means) detects the conveyance state of the bill. By using the information on the conveyance state of the bill, the position of the bill detected by the position sensor 22 is corrected, the optimum gate switching timing is detected, and the gate solenoid ON / OFF signal 27 of the gate solenoid 29 to the driver 28 is detected. Is output. In addition, the control unit 26
Can determine the stacking destination of the banknote based on the discrimination information from the discrimination mechanism 21. The driver 28 controls the control unit 2
It is a drive circuit for turning on / off the gate solenoid with a signal from 6.

FIG. 3 shows an example of sensor arrangement of the discrimination mechanism 21 according to the present invention. It is assumed that the bills are conveyed from the top to the bottom in FIG. Two S sensors 32 are provided perpendicularly to the conveyance direction and on the left and right, and when shielded by the conveyed bills 31 are turned ON (dark signal output), the short dimension, bill interval, cycle, skew, etc. Is a transmissive optical sensor for detecting Further, the S sensor 32 is also a sensor that serves as a reference for checking whether the banknote is correctly conveyed by using the position sensor 22 in the conveyance path. T
The sensor 33 is an image sensor, for example, an amorphous image sensor, and is provided perpendicular to the transport direction,
It is a sensor that detects longitudinal size, bill stains, tears, etc. as bill discrimination information. Since the T sensor 33 scans in the left-right direction (width direction), it is possible to detect a banknote not by a point like the S sensor 32, but by detecting it by a line, so that the tip of the banknote can be detected. The position can be reliably detected.

Next, FIG. 4 shows a flowchart of the paper sheet conveying process of the paper sheet handling apparatus of the present invention. First, the transport motor for driving the transport path is started (step 4).
1). Next, it is determined whether or not the bill has reached the discrimination section (step 42). When the bill reaches the discrimination section (step 42; YES), the encoder pulse number is fetched, the discrimination data such as the thickness, length, and size of the bill is collected (step 43), and the detected result is a normal bill ( A discrimination process is performed to determine whether the bill is a genuine bill or an abnormal bill (reject bill) (step 44). Then, when it is necessary to switch the gate, the gate switching timing is calculated from the detected bill position (step 45), and the designation of the gate to be turned ON / OFF and the encoder pulse number which is the timing of switching the gate are written in the gate control LSI. (Step 46). When the bills have been conveyed (step 47), the conveyance motor is stopped (step 48), and the process ends.

On the other hand, in the gate control LSI in which the number of encoder pulses has been written, an ON / OFF signal is output to the gate solenoid when the number of encoder pulses for switching the gate for each gate is reached (steps 50, 51, 52). . The above processing is performed for all gates (step 53), and when the sorting operation for all banknotes is completed (step 54), the transport motor is stopped and a series of operations is completed. In the above process, in the gate switching timing calculation in the discrimination process, the gate switching timing is calculated with the position of the banknote detected by the S sensor 32 as a reference, but the information of the banknote tip position detected by the T sensor 33 is calculated. The gate switching timing is calculated using this.

Next, one embodiment of means for correcting the bill tip position and controlling the gate will be described with reference to FIG. In this embodiment, the banknotes are conveyed downward from the top of FIG. If the distance that the bill moves while switching the gate is L, then L = V × T. Here, V is the transport speed, and T is the gate switching time. Therefore, in order to switch the gate before the bill reaches the gate tip, when the bill reaches the position L = VT before the bill reaches the gate tip, an ON / OFF signal is output to the gate. There is a need. The timing of outputting the ON / OFF signal of the gate is the gate switching timing position 35. The distance LT from the S sensor 32 to the gate switching timing position 35 is LT = Lg-L = Lg-VT. Here, Lg is from the S sensor 32 to the gate tip 3
It is a distance up to 4. Further, when the number of encoder pulses during the movement of the bill from the S sensor 32 to the gate switching timing position 35 is eT, eT = LT / h = (Lg-VT) / h. h is the amount of bill movement per pulse of the encoder pulse.

As shown in FIG. 5A, assuming that the encoder pulse number when the actual bill tip reaches the S sensor 32 at a skew angle of 0 ° is E0, the encoder pulse number is E0 + eT = E0 + (Lg It is sufficient to output an ON / OFF signal to the gate when −VT) / h. However,
If the bill is skewed as shown in FIG.
Therefore, the bill tip 36 is located ahead of the position where the bill is detected by the sensor 32. Therefore, the position 36 of the bill tip is corrected as follows by using the encoder pulse number EI when the bill tip is detected by the T sensor 33. S
Since the distance between the sensor 32 and the T sensor 33 is LI, S
The number of encoder pulses when the bill moves from the sensor 32 to the T sensor 33 is LI / h. Therefore, the encoder pulse number E when the bill tip is detected by the T sensor 33
Using I, the encoder pulse number E0 ′ when the actual bill tip 36 reaches the position of the S sensor 32 is calculated as E0 ′ = EI−LI / h. If the gate switching timing position 35 is calculated using this E0 ', even if the banknotes are skewed, one gate drive mechanism can be used to accurately switch the gates and the papers without providing a sensor for each gate. It becomes possible to perform division of leaves. In the above method, the position of the banknote is managed based on the position of the S sensor 32.
The position of the banknote may be managed based on the position of the T sensor 33. Further, instead of the T sensor 33 (image sensor), a plurality of sensors, such as the S sensor 32, which catch the bill at points may be arranged in a line in the width direction to detect the leading end of the bill.

[0016]

According to the present invention, since the tip position of the paper sheet is detected and gate control is performed, the paper sheet is skewed and the shape of the paper sheet is determined. Even in this case, the gate switching timing can be optimized, and the sheets conveyed at high speed can be reliably sorted. In addition, there is an effect that it is possible to reduce the damage rate of paper sheets and the jam occurrence rate at the gate portion.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a paper sheet handling apparatus that is an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a hardware block diagram relating to gate switching control in the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a sensor arrangement example of a discrimination mechanism according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a paper sheet conveying process according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of means for correcting the bill tip position and controlling the gate in the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1: deposit / withdrawal port part, 2, 4a, 4b, 4c, 6, 7: transport path, 3: discrimination part, 5: temporary stacking part, 8-10: denomination cassette, 11: banknote cassette, 12: separator, 13-
14: Reject box, 15-20: Gate, 2
1: discrimination mechanism, 22: position sensor, 24: encoder,
26: control part, 28: driver, 29: gate solenoid, 30: gate part, 31: conveyance bill, 32: S sensor, 33: T sensor, 34: gate, 35: gate switching timing position, 36: bill tip.

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A conveyance path for conveying a paper sheet and a tip position of the paper sheet on the conveyance path in a width direction (a direction perpendicular to the conveyance path).
At least one tip position detecting means for detecting over a plurality of positions of the sheet, and 1 for switching the conveying direction of the paper sheets.
A paper sheet handling apparatus comprising: one or more gates; and a control unit that controls switching of the one or more gates based on the tip position information of the paper sheets detected by the tip position detecting means. . 2. The paper sheet handling apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the leading edge position detecting means comprises an image sensor. 3. In addition to the leading edge position detecting means for the paper sheets, a passage position detecting means for detecting passage of the paper sheets on the conveying path is further provided, and the control section detects the passage position detecting means. 2. The switching control of the one or more gates is performed based on the passing position information of the paper sheets and the leading end position information of the bill detected by the leading end position detecting means. The paper sheet handling device according to 2.