Continuous motion packer controller

Claim 1

In a packer of the type having conveyor means for advancing a plurality of articles along a first horizontal path, an infeed station, a grid structure for receiving said articles at said infeed station, a discharge station, case conveyor means for delivering upwardly open packing cases to said discharge station along a second horizontal path, means for moving said grid structure from said infeed station to said discharge station, means for releasing said articles from said grid structure at said discharge station causing said articles to drop into said packing cases and a controller for operating said packer, said controller comprising: controller instruction storage means for storing a plurality of controller instructions capable of directing packer operation; a plurality of article position detectors associated with said article conveyor means and providing article present control signals to indicate the presence of an article at each corresponding detector location, said detectors being spaced from one another at predetermined intervals along the article conveyor means; means for sensing the presence or absence of said article present control signals addressed as to their locations; at least one packing case position detector associated with said case conveyor means, said case detector providing a case present control signal indicating the presence of at least one case at said corresponding detector; means for sensing the presence or absence of said case present control signal; at least one article blocking detector associated with said grid structure, said blocking detector providing a control signal to indicate whether one or more articles has failed to drop from its position in the grid; means for sensing the presence or absence of said grid blocking control signal; real time processing means for accessing said controller instructions in said controller instruction storage means and for executing certain of said instructions in response to said article and case detector control signals to effect one of a number of predetermined courses of action, and means responsive to said real time processing means for causing said packer to operate in accordance with said predetermined course of action.