Abstract
News editors obtained the following quote from the background information suppli ed by the inventors:“The invention generally relates to sortation systems, and relates in particular to robotic and other sortationsystems that are intended t o be used in dynamic environments requiring the sortation system toaccommodate processing a variety of objects in both homogeneous and heterogeneous arrangemen ts.“Many order fulfillment operations achieve high efficiency by employing a proces s in which orders arepicked from warehouse shelves and placed into bins that ar e sorted downstream. At the sorting stageindividual articles are identified, an d multi-article orders are consolidated into a single bin or shelf locationso t hat they may be packed and then shipped to customers. The process of sorting the se articles has beendone by hand. A human sorter picks an article from an incom ing bin, finds the barcode on the object,scans the barcode with a handheld or f ixed-mount barcode scanner, determines from the scanned barcodethe appropriate bin or shelf location for the article, and then places the article in the so-det ermined bin orshelf location where all articles for that order go.
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