JPH10111969A - Automatic handling device for paper sheet - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To grasp the total amount of money in the device at any time by tracing which storage box a carried paper sheet is taken out of, discriminating how many paper sheets are carried at a time, and determining the kind and quantity of the paper sheets. SOLUTION: At the time of payment, paper moneys are taken out of denomination boxes 8 and 8 and carried to a discrimination part 3, and paper moneys whose kind or quantity can not be decided are sent in a temporary storage part 4. An optical detection sensor is arranged right behind the position where the paper moneys are taken out of the money kind boxes 8 and 9 to detect the taking-out timing, and a paper money tracking circuit tracks the bill position. The bills sent in the temporary storage part 4 are sent out to a conveyance path 2 again, a conveyance state detection sensor 6 detects the conveyance state of the paper moneys, and a quantity determining circuit determines their quantity. Further, the bill tracking circuit makes clear the denomination of the paper moneys, so an amount determining circuit determines the amount of rejected paper moneys, and stores the amount in a storage circuit and also displays it on a CRT.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an automatic paper sheet handling apparatus.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art The prior art is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-225497.
As described in the publication, bills of reject specifications are stored in a dedicated reject bill storage container, and are stored separately from bills that can be confirmed based on the result of discrimination. Although the amount of the rejected bill is unknown as it is, since the total amount of the bills stored in the apparatus is known in advance, it can be calculated by subtracting the amount determined by the above-described discrimination from the total amount. Was. However, this method is an estimation to the last, and it was not possible to grasp the amount of money in the device in the original meaning.

[0003] In addition, a jam or the like occurs during a transaction,
If you pull out these jammed banknotes by hand, you need to make sure that you control the amount of money you pull out.
The total amount of bills stored in the device is not known.
In such a case, the method of the known example has limitations.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to always determine the total amount in a device by automatically determining the amount of rejected banknotes generated in the device as described above that cannot be discriminated. . As a result, the amount of money in the device is reliably grasped, and the efficiency of cash management operations at financial institutions is improved.

[0005]

In order to achieve this object, the present invention provides means for separating, transporting, and stacking paper sheets one by one, as well as the types of paper sheets to be transported, In a sheet handling apparatus provided with a discriminating means for detecting the number of sheets,
A tracking unit for tracking the storage box from which the separated and conveyed paper sheets are taken out, and the paper sheets are skewed, a plurality of paper sheets are overlapped, or a folded part is provided. In such a case, a sheet number discriminating means for discriminating how many sheets are being conveyed, and a quantity determination for fixing the type and the sheet number of these sheets based on information from the sheet number discriminating means and the tracking means. Means and storage means for storing the quantity or display means for displaying.

[0006] Further, a temporary storage means for temporarily storing paper sheets which are skewed, overlapped, or have a folded part, in which the type and number of sheets cannot be detected by the discriminating means, is provided. In addition, after the completion of the transaction, the type and the number of sheets that cannot be detected are provided with an off-line number determining means for performing the number identification by the number identification means while transporting the sheet at a transport speed lower than the speed at the time of the normal transaction. ing.

Further, the temporary storage means is arranged so as to oppose the traveling conveyance means and the transport means which travels in a simple manner in accordance with the timing at which the paper sheets are conveyed. A transport control unit is provided for driving the transport path at a moving speed lower than the transport speed of the downstream transport path and sending the transport path to the downstream transport path.

Further, as another means, a paper provided with respective means for separating, transporting, and stacking paper sheets one by one, and a discriminating means for detecting the type and number of paper sheets to be transported. A detecting means for detecting the size of the conveyed paper sheet, a storage means for storing the size of the paper sheet stored in the storage box, and the detected paper sheet. Means for discriminating the type of paper sheet by comparing the size of the paper sheet with the size of the storage means; In the case where the paper sheets are conveyed, the number of sheets of each size is conveyed, and the number of paper sheets is conveyed based on information from the number of paper sheets and the tracking means. A quantity determining means for determining the type and number of these sheets, And let a display means for performing storage means or display storing quantity.

Further, in the automatic bill transaction apparatus for performing a deposit and withdrawal process of a bill, the above-mentioned quantity determining means, a storage means for storing the above-mentioned quantity or a display means for displaying the quantity, and when the bill is dispensed, the bill is transferred to the apparatus. An amount determining operation control means for operating the quantity determining means at the time of replenishment, collection or determination of the amount of bills in the apparatus is provided.

With the tracking means, it is possible to track from which storage box the separated and conveyed paper sheets have been taken out even if the paper sheets cannot be discriminated because they overlap or skew. The type can be determined.

The number-of-sheets discriminating means can discriminate the number of sheets even if the sheets are skewed, a plurality of sheets are overlapped, or a folded part is present.

The type and number of these sheets can be determined by the quantity determining means based on information from the number identifying means and the tracking means.

The quantity can be stored by the storage means and the display means, so that the quantity can be taken out whenever necessary,
Can be displayed.

[0014] Further, the sheets whose type and number cannot be detected by the discrimination are temporarily stored in the storage means by the off-line sheet number determining means, and the sheets are taken out after the transaction is completed, and the sheets are taken out during the normal transaction. The number of sheets can be discriminated by the number-of-sheets determining means while the sheet is conveyed at a lower conveying speed than the speed of the sheet, so that the mechanism can be operated in a dynamically stable state, and Can be simply and inexpensively constructed. Further, since the discrimination time for discriminating the number of sheets can be given a margin, the discriminating function of the number discriminating means can be configured in a complicated manner, and the detection performance can be improved.

Further, the transport control means of the temporary storage means can drive the transport in accordance with the transport timing of the paper sheets being transported at an arbitrary time, so that the interval between the paper sheets is set to a predetermined size. It can be stored side by side, and the storage space can be set small. Further, since paper sheets conveyed in a complicated form such as a stacked state can be stored without interfering with each other, occurrence of a trouble such as a jam can be prevented. In addition, when the number of sheets is temporarily discriminated after completion of the storage, the transport path is driven at a moving speed lower than the transport speed of the subsequent transport path and is sent out to the subsequent transport path, so that the stored paper sheets are set again at a predetermined interval. It is easy to identify the number of paper sheets at the later stage because it can be sent out while it is possible, and at the same time, it is possible to send out paper sheets that have been sent and stored in a double feed state while separating them one by one. In addition, it is possible to easily identify the number of paper sheets at a later stage.

As a means for discriminating the type of paper sheet, the size of the paper sheet is stored on the one hand, and the size of the conveyed paper sheet is detected on the other hand. By determining the type by collating,
It is possible to omit a tracing means for tracing which paper sheet has been sent out from the storage means, and to reduce the number of parts of the apparatus, that is, to reduce the size and cost of the apparatus. Become. Also, when determining the number of sheets after temporarily storing the sheets, it is not necessary to remember which temporarily stored sheets are sent from which storage box.

Further, according to the automatic transaction device for bills to which the above-mentioned means are applied, the amount-determining operation control means is configured to output the bills at the time of dispensing.
It is possible to automatically determine the value of the bills in the device at any time by determining the amount of bills with unknown amounts that occur when replenishing and collecting bills in the device or determining the amount of bills in the device. Since it is possible, it is not necessary for the attendant to manually check the number of sheets in the reject specification bill storage means, and the work amount of the attendant operation can be reduced.

[0018]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 2 shows a schematic configuration of a banknote handling apparatus incorporated in an automatic cash transaction apparatus for performing banknote deposit / withdrawal transactions.
The arrow in the figure indicates the direction in which the bill is sent. The banknote pay-in / pay-out port 1 is a place where a customer pays and pays out banknotes. The banknotes deposited into the deposit and withdrawal port 1 are separated one by one by an internal separating unit (not shown) and sent to the discriminating unit 3. The discrimination unit 3 determines the authenticity, denomination, and the like of the bill. The reject box 5 cannot determine the denomination and the number of banknotes in the discriminating unit 3 or in the discriminating unit 3 that the deposited banknotes are determined to be unsuitable to be used again for withdrawal because the deposited banknotes are extremely dirty. Bills (hereinafter referred to as reject bills). The denomination boxes 8 and 9 store bills for each denomination. Further, the denomination boxes 8 and 9 are provided with a separation unit (not shown) for separating banknotes stored for paying out to customers again one by one.

The transport of bills to these bill processing units is carried out by a transport path 2 constituted by a transport belt, which is a rubber belt running oppositely. Gate 10
Although only a part of them is shown, they are provided at each of the branches of the transport path 2 and switch the transport direction of bills. Although not shown, a detection sensor, which is a detection means for detecting a timing at which a bill is conveyed, is arranged at a joint of the conveyance path. These detection sensors are composed of a light emitting element and a light receiving element, and are installed on both sides of a transport path through which a bill passes.

The temporary storage section 11 is constituted by a transport path 4 branched from the middle of the transport path 2 and is configured to be driven by a drive system independent of the transport path 2 as described later. I have.

The cassette 12 is used for replenishing bills into the apparatus,
It is a bill storage box for collection, and has a mechanism for storing bills and taking out bills similarly to the money box.

Although a description of the structure and details of these mechanisms will be omitted, the operation control circuit of the mechanism provided in the apparatus will provide
The bills inserted into the deposit and withdrawal port 1 are discriminated by the discriminating unit 3, and the banknotes whose denomination and number are unknown are returned to the deposit and withdrawal port 1,
The read bills are sorted and stored in the denomination boxes 8 and 9 according to the respective denominations. On the other hand, when dispensing banknotes, the banknotes are separated from the denomination boxes 8 and 9 in accordance with the required number of banknotes and the denomination, and only the determined banknotes are discriminated by the discrimination unit 3 to the deposit / dispense port 1. Will be sent out. In this case, when a rejected bill is generated, the bill is fed into the temporary storage unit 11 and, as will be described later with reference to FIGS. While the denomination is determined, it is stored in the reject box 5.

FIG. 3 shows an example of a traveling drive control operation of the belt transport path 4 which is driven to run oppositely, which is the temporary storage unit 11 for rejected bills. The belt drive motor control circuit obtains the transport timing of the bills fed from the transport path 2 from the signal of the optical detection sensor, and determines the transport drive timing and the transport speed of the transport path 4 based on data stored in advance. Drive the belt drive motor.

FIG. 1 shows an outline of a device configuration for determining the amount of a non-discriminating bill generated when a bill is dispensed by the present device and a flow of the operation. At the time of withdrawal, denomination boxes 8, 9
The banknote is taken out of the banknote and transported to the discrimination unit 3. The discrimination unit 3 discriminates the denomination and the number of the conveyed banknotes, and discharges only the determined banknotes to the cash slot 1. The banknote whose denomination and number cannot be determined by the discrimination unit 3 is sent to the temporary storage unit 4 while sequentially switching a plurality of gates. An optical detection sensor is arranged at a position immediately after the bill is taken out from the denomination boxes 8 and 9, and the timing at which the bill is taken out is detected. Then, the bill tracking circuit tracks the bill position after the bill is fed at a predetermined transport speed. The fed bill is sent out again to the transport path 2 (FIG. 3 described later), the transport state of the bill is detected by the transport state detecting sensor 6, and the number is determined by the number determination circuit (FIG. 4 described later).

On the other hand, since the denomination of the banknote whose number has been determined by the banknote tracking circuit is determined, the amount of the rejected banknote is determined by the amount determination circuit, and the amount is stored in the storage circuit. It is displayed on the CRT by the display circuit.

FIG. 3 shows a state in which the fed banknotes are temporarily stored and then sent out again to determine the denomination and the number of sheets. The rejected bills branched from the transport path 2 are fed by the optical detection sensor to detect the transport timing for each block of bills, and the belt drive motor control circuit drives the belt drive motor to rotate the belt drive motor in accordance with the detected timing. Stop according to the rear end position information of the block. Thereby, the conveyed banknotes are stored in the belt while overlapping a part thereof.

After the predetermined number of bills have been dispensed, the transport path 4 is again driven to run at a lower speed than the transport path 2 by the belt drive motor control circuit. As a result, the banknotes that have been stored in a partially overlapped manner are conveyed at a higher speed when the banknotes are partially held by the conveyance path 2, and are separated and conveyed one by one. In this case, the same effect can be obtained by arranging the optical detection sensor on the exit side of the transport path 4 and running intermittently while detecting the timing at which bills are sent out.

FIG. 4 shows a method for determining the number of banknotes. Although not shown, the transport state detection sensor includes a thickness detection sensor that detects the thickness of the banknote, and an image reading sensor that detects the transport mode of the banknote. That is, the thickness detection sensor guides the bills being conveyed between the rollers and detects the amount of displacement of one of the rollers in the thickness direction according to the thickness of the bills. 3) is an optical sensor for detecting the state of the bill being conveyed, in which the optical sensors are arranged side by side on a line in the width direction of the bill conveyance path.

The output of the image reading sensor 6 is shown in FIG.
As shown in FIG. 7, the overlapping state of the conveyed bills is reflected. That is, a state in which the sheets are conveyed in an overlapping or oblique manner is schematically obtained. When there is only one bill, posture information such as a skew state can be obtained. The banknote number determination circuit analyzes the state of overlap of the banknotes, and obtains the banknotes by sequentially aligning the corners of the banknotes with straight lines A, B, and C having the corners in the drawing that cross the transport direction. On the other hand, from the thickness information obtained from the thickness detection sensor and the information on the overlapping state of the banknotes, determine the thickness of each of the stacked banknotes, check whether each banknote further overlaps, and check the ignition, Ask for. That is, the thicknesses of the bills A, B, and C in the figure are obtained by calculation in consideration of the overlapping state, and it is estimated how many bills are being conveyed and overlapped.

That is, the output of the thickness detection sensor when the straight lines A, B, and C have passed changes with time, and the output value 1 indicates the thickness of the bill C, and the value m indicates the bill B and the bill C , The value n indicates the sum of the thicknesses of the banknotes A, B, C. Therefore, from these values, the thicknesses of bills A, B, and C, t _A ,
t _B and t _C can be obtained by calculation. And
If those values are smaller than the thickness of two bills, it can be confirmed that each bill A, B, and C is one by one. Here, t _min indicates the value of the thinnest among the variations in the thickness of the bill.

With the above configuration and operation, it is possible to determine the number of banknotes conveyed in an overlapping manner. Further, as described above, since the denomination of the bill is determined by the bill position tracking circuit, the amount of the rejected bill can be determined by the amount determination circuit.

FIG. 5 shows another example of the amount determination operation at the time of dispensing described in FIG. That is, the denomination information is determined by detecting the size of the bill being conveyed, instead of tracking the bill taken out from the denomination box. For this purpose, a banknote size information storage circuit storing denominations and banknote size information is provided, and the number determination circuit obtains the size of each banknote of the stacked banknotes obtained from the conveyance state detection sensor. The denomination is estimated with reference to the banknote size information in the information storage circuit.

Although not shown, as another embodiment of the present invention, the banknotes are taken out from the temporary storage unit and conveyed while being conveyed on the conveying path 2 which conveys the banknotes at a lower speed than the normal conveying speed. There is a method of detecting in this case,
Since the bill is transported at a low speed, the thickness detection sensor can soften the dynamic fluctuation of the sudden position when the bill enters, and obtain a sensor output that more accurately reflects the thickness of the bill. it can. In particular, when the leading end of the bill enters the sensor, vibration occurs in the thickness direction of the roller, and the thickness cannot be measured accurately, but the influence of this vibration can be reduced. Become.

Further, in this embodiment, an example of dealing with the dispensing of bills has been described. However, the present invention is also applicable to the loading and collecting of bills in the apparatus or the close inspection operation for confirming the height of bills in the apparatus. Although there are some differences in the transport route of bills, the operation of determining the amount of rejected bills is similarly possible. For example, during scrutiny,
The banknote taken out from the denomination box 8 or 9 is passed through the discriminating unit 3, the rejected banknote is temporarily stored in the temporary storage unit 10, and then the conveyance state is detected to determine the amount of the rejected banknote. The confirmed banknote is in cassette 12
The banknote is stored in the original denomination box via. The amount of money in the device at the time of close inspection is the sum of the rejected bill and the bill in the denomination box. However, there are non-return bills that are not used for dispensing again in the device, and the total amount in the device is the sum of these amounts.

The following effects are produced by the above configuration and operation.

In the automatic bill handling apparatus, in addition to the known bill trading operation, even if separated bills generate large skewing or double feeding, the amounts of these bills can be determined.
Thereby, it is possible to automatically grasp the amount of money present in the bill transaction apparatus. That is, it is possible to reduce cash management work in a bank or the like.

[0038]

According to the present invention, the amount of banknotes in a cash transaction device can be automatically examined, and cash management work in a financial institution such as a bank can be reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart of an amount determination operation according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory view of an automatic paper sheet handling apparatus.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of the configuration and operation of a temporary storage mechanism for banknotes.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of a method for determining the number of banknotes.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of an amount determination operation according to another embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1: Deposit / withdrawal port, 3: Identification section, 8, 9: Denomination box, 1
1. Temporary storage unit, 12: Cassette.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An automatic sheet handling apparatus comprising means for separating, transporting, and stacking sheets one by one, and discriminating means for detecting the type and number of sheets to be transported. A tracking means for tracking which paper box is separated and transported by said discriminating means and from which storage box is taken out; and Number identification means for identifying how many of the folded sheets or the like are being conveyed, and the type and number of these sheets based on information from the number identification means and the tracking means. An automatic paper sheet handling apparatus, comprising: a quantity determining means for determining; and a storage means for storing the quantity or a display means for displaying.