Food product positioning system and method
First Claim
1. A method of aligning food products on a conveyor, comprising the steps of:
- providing a food product on a conveyor;
detecting a position of the food product with a sensor; and
moving a mis-positioned food product from an original position on the conveyor to a destination position on the conveyor with a robot;
wherein the step of detecting is defined in that the position is a vertical alignment position of food products in a food product stack; and
wherein the step of moving includes positioning, with the robot, food products within the food product stack to bring the food product stack into a predefined vertical alignment.
2 Assignments
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Accused Products
Abstract
A food handling system having a positioning system and method. The positioning system includes a main conveying surface, an electronic sensor, a controller and a robot. The main conveying surface is configured to move food products. The electronic sensor is configured to capture position data about one or more food products on the main conveying surface within a sensor range of the sensor. The controller is signal-connected to the electronic sensor and the robot. The controller is configured to receive data captured by the sensor and is configured to instruct the robot to move a food product to a destination position. The robot is configured to reposition one or more food products on the conveying surface according to instructions sent by the controller. The robot has a longitudinal and a lateral working range. The food product may include formed meat patties or sliced meat or cheese products.
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Citations
11 Claims
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1. A method of aligning food products on a conveyor, comprising the steps of:
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providing a food product on a conveyor; detecting a position of the food product with a sensor; and moving a mis-positioned food product from an original position on the conveyor to a destination position on the conveyor with a robot; wherein the step of detecting is defined in that the position is a vertical alignment position of food products in a food product stack; and
wherein the step of moving includes positioning, with the robot, food products within the food product stack to bring the food product stack into a predefined vertical alignment. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3)
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4. A method of aligning food products on a conveyor, comprising the steps of:
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providing a food product on a conveyor; detecting a position of the food product with a sensor; and moving a mis-positioned food product from an original position on the conveyor to a destination position on the conveyor with a robot; after the step of detecting, comprising the following steps; sending a measured position value corresponding to the food product position detected by the sensor to a controller; and determining with the controller whether the food product is mis-positioned by comparing the measured position value one or more predefined position values. - View Dependent Claims (5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A method of aligning food products on a conveyor, comprising the steps of:
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providing a food product on a conveyor; detecting a position of the food product with a sensor; and moving a mis-positioned food product from an original position on the conveyor to a destination position on the conveyor with a robot; after the step of detecting, further comprising the steps of; sending to a controller the measured position value corresponding to the food product position as measured by the sensor; determining whether a food product is robot-correctable food product by determining whether the position value is within a predefined correctable position range; routing a non-robot-correctable food products to a correction station; and manually correcting the non-robot-correctable food products that are manually correctable. - View Dependent Claims (11)
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Specification