The Siemens Unique Sorting System
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Siemens has developed a logistics center sorting system that takes up far less space than comparable products. Known as the Visicon Singulator, the system is unique in that it registers and individually transports every item. To do so, the facility operates an intelligent camera system in combination with a conveyor belt that can proceed at various speeds along part of its length. Siemens Mobility recently unveiled the Visicon Singulator at the LogiMat trade fair in Stuttgart.
Parcel delivery companies have to handle enormous numbers of packages. UPS alone, for instance, transports almost 16 million items worldwide every day. The packages are normally sorted in machines with a complex series of conveyor belts running at different speeds and using different slopes. As a result, packages that at first are randomly positioned in every imaginable way are eventually lined up in an orderly row, with fixed distances between each item. Only when this has been completed can the address labels or barcodes on the packages be automatically read. Until now it has been necessary for many packages to be recirculated into the system and to go through several loops.
The Visicon Singulator, on the other hand, adjusts the speed ofthe conveyor belt system to each individual package, allowing itto sort 9,000 packages per hour in one step, without having tore circulate any items. This enables the facility to be much more compact, even though it handles the packages very carefully. At the heart of the system is a stretch of conveyor belt that consists of a matrix of narrow belts, each which can be operated individually.
The matrix is controlled by an intelligent camera system that monitors the size and position of every incoming package and subsequently calculates the speed at which each belt has to run. Each package is either slowed down or accelerated to keep it at the correct distance to other items. Unlike purely mechanical singling facilities, the Visicon Singulator adapts itself dynamically to throughput, and important singling parameters such as distance, orientation, and output direction can be flexibly selected.
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