FORKLIFT SYSTEM FOR WASTE OR RECYCLABLE MATERIAL HANDLING

• US 20170011364A1
• Filed: 07/07/2016
• Published: 01/12/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/08/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Divert, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Divert, Inc.
• Inventors: Whitman, Nicholas L., Begin, Ryan R.
• Granted Patent: US 10,005,587 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B60P 1/00 Vehicles predominantly for transporting loads and modified to facilitate loading, consolidating the load, or unloading vehicles for carrying harvested crops with means for self-loading or self-unloading A01D90/00; peculiar to refuse collecting-vehicles B65F; loading or unloading vehicles by means not incorporated therein B65G
• CPC Class Codes: B65D 19/0004 Rigid pallets without side walls
• CPC Class Codes: B65D 19/14 made wholly or mainly of wood
• CPC Class Codes: B65D 19/16 Collapsible pallets
• CPC Class Codes: B65D 21/086 Collapsible or telescopic containers B65D1/0292 and B65D21/068 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: B65F 1/06 with flexible inserts, e.g. bags or sacks B65F1/0073 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: B65F 1/1468 Means for facilitating the transport of the receptacle, e.g. wheels, rolls hand-operated refuse vehicles B65F3/005
• CPC Class Codes: B65F 2210/1026 for smelling substances
• CPC Class Codes: B65F 2210/128 Data transmitting means
• CPC Class Codes: B65F 2210/138 Identification means
• CPC Class Codes: B65F 2220/106 Collapsible
• CPC Class Codes: B65F 2220/1063 foldable
• CPC Class Codes: B65F 2240/138 Garden debris
• CPC Class Codes: B65F 2250/105 Biodegradable
• CPC Class Codes: B65F 2250/106 Carton
• CPC Class Codes: B65F 2250/114 Plastics
• CPC Class Codes: B65F 9/00 Transferring of refuse between vehicles or containers with intermediate storage or pressing presses for baling per se B30B9/30
• CPC Class Codes: B66F 9/06 movable, with their loads, on wheels or the like, e.g. fork-lift trucks vehicle aspects B60 - B62; vehicles predominantly for transporting loads and modified to facilitate loading or unloading B60P1/00; low-lift hand trucks for transporting goods B62B3/06
• CPC Class Codes: G01G 19/083 lift truck scale
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/58 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10009 : sensing by radiation using wavelengths larger than 0.1 mm, e.g. radio-waves or microwaves
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10316 : using at least one antenna particularly designed for interrogating the wireless record carriers antennas in general H01Q1/22
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/08 : Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0875 : Itemisation or classification of parts, supplies or services, e.g. bill of materials
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/30 : Administration of product recycling or disposal
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/018 : Certifying business or products
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 : Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0002 : Inspection of images, e.g. flaw detection
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 2201/06 : Recognition of objects for industrial automation
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/2247 : Characters composed of bars, e.g. CMC-7
• CPC Class Codes: G09F 2003/0272 : Labels for containers
• CPC Class Codes: G09F 3/0297 : including a machine-readable marking, e.g. a bar code digitally marked record carriers in general G06K19/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/01 : Protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/11 : for generating image signals from visible and infrared light wavelengths
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/45 : for generating image signals from two or more image sensors being of different type or operating in different modes, e.g. with a CMOS sensor for moving images in combination with a charge-coupled device [CCD] for still images
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 : Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/40 : for vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/44 : for communication between vehicles and infrastructures, e.g. vehicle-to-cloud [V2C] or vehicle-to-home [V2H]
• CPC Class Codes: Y02W 30/82 : Recycling of waste of electrical or electronic equipment [WEEE]
• CPC Class Codes: Y02W 90/00 : Enabling technologies or technologies with a potential or indirect contribution to greenhouse gas [GHG] emissions mitigation

Abstract

Systems, methods, and devices are provided for tracking and managing waste or recyclable materials, which may include one or more devices enabled to capture and record information about waste material at a point in a distribution chain, and information technology systems for collecting, processing, and analyzing information about a large number and variety of streams of waste material. A forklift system may include a forklift, an RFID reader with an antenna positioned on or in proximity to the forklift, wherein the antenna is positioned to read RFID information from an RFID tag positioned on an item handled by the forklift. The system may also include a device for measuring a parameter indicative of the weight of the item handled by the forklift, and a processing facility with a server for associating the information read by the RFID reader and the parameter indicative of the weight of the item.

Claims

1. A forklift system adapted to collect and report information about items handled by a forklift, the system comprising:

a forklift;

an RFID reader with at least one antenna positioned at least one of on and in proximity to the forklift, wherein the at least one antenna of the RFID reader is positioned to read RFID information from at least one RFID tag positioned on an item handled by the forklift;

a device for measuring a parameter indicative of the weight of the item handled by the forklift; and

a processing facility with a server for associating the information read by the RFID reader and the parameter indicative of the weight of the item.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the server further associates the information from the RFID reader with timestamp information that indicates a time of the handling of the item by the forklift.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the device for measuring the parameter indicative of the weight of the item is at least one of a drive-on scale and a drive-through scale.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the device for measuring the parameter indicative of the weight of the item is positioned on the forklift.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the parameter indicative of the weight of the item is at least one operating parameter of at least one operating system of the forklift.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the at least one operating parameter is at least one of a pressure associated with a lifting system of the forklift, a load measured in the lifting system of the forklift, a power requirement of a power system of the forklift, and an operating parameter of a motor of the forklift.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising a communications facility of the forklift for communicating the information captured by at least one of the RFID reader and the device for measuring weight to the server.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising a camera for capturing an image of the item handled by the forklift, wherein at least one of the captured image and information from the captured image is associated with the information captured by the RFID reader.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein a communications facility communicates at least one of the captured image and information from the captured image to the server.