Automatic storage/retrieval apparatus for articles

Claim 1

An automatic storage/retrieval apparatus for articles comprising: a storage area vertically and horizontally provided with a plurality of racks in the form of a matrix; pickers movably provided along opening sides of the racks for respective rack stages of said storage area to insert/extract articles in/from said racks; first optical communication units provided to face the pickers for the respective rack stages toward travel spaces of said pickers; second optical communication units provided on respective ones of said pickers to perform optical communication with corresponding said first optical communication units; and picker control means for performing transfer of optical signals between said first and second optical communication units to independently control said pickers, wherein said articles include containers having engaging portions on their side walls, said pickers have a pair of sliding arms parallely provided to be reciprocally driven toward both side portions of said racks, said sliding arms have an annular string extended in their reciprocal directions to have first and second portions opposite to each other and an engaging member which is reciprocable in the same direction with said sliding arms and driven engagingly to said engaging portion on the side wall of said container, and said annular string is fixed to a body of said picker on said first portion of said annular string while being coupled to said engaging member in predetermined position on said second portion of said annular string, whereby said engaging member is reciprocally driven on said sliding arm in association with reciprocal driving of said sliding arm.