US 11,753,250 B1
Singulation of items
Joseph McGrath, Seattle, WA (US); Emanuel Moshouris, Seattle, WA (US); and Danielle Vigent, San Pedro, CA (US)
Assigned to Amazon Technologies, Inc., Seattle, WA (US)
Filed by Amazon Technologies, Inc., Seattle, WA (US)
Filed on Jun. 10, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/344,207.
Int. Cl. B65G 19/02 (2006.01); B65G 19/22 (2006.01); B07C 5/36 (2006.01); B65G 15/44 (2006.01); B65G 47/51 (2006.01); B65G 21/20 (2006.01); B65G 47/46 (2006.01)
CPC B65G 19/02 (2013.01) [B07C 5/362 (2013.01); B65G 15/44 (2013.01); B65G 19/225 (2013.01); B65G 21/2072 (2013.01); B65G 47/5104 (2013.01); B65G 47/46 (2013.01); B65G 2201/025 (2013.01)] 17 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for handling inventory items comprising:
receiving items on a singulation device having item slots defined by partitions extending from the singulation device and being separated by a length greater than or equal to a maximum item length, a portion of the items becoming retained items being retained in the item slots on the singulation device by a slanted retaining ledge and a remainder of the items falling off of the singulation device and being received by a return conveyor, each of the items being sized less than the maximum item length and being between a minimum item height and a maximum item height;
advancing the retained items along a length of the retaining ledge from a first portion of the retaining ledge having a height greater than or equal to the maximum item height, to a second portion of the retaining ledge having a height less than or equal to the minimum item height;
while the retained items are being advanced, receiving, on the return conveyor, items that fall off of the singulation device over the second portion of the retaining ledge, the portion of the retained items being received along the second portion of the retaining ledge; and
receiving the retained items on an output conveyor, the retained items received from a portion of the singulation device extending beyond the length of the retaining ledge.