EP1271432A1

EP1271432A1 - Selecting process and selecting device for automatic distributors, particularly of alimentary products

Info

Publication number: EP1271432A1
Application number: EP01830421A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Paolo Borra
Original assignee: Damian SRL
Current assignee: Damian SRL
Priority date: 2001-06-21
Filing date: 2001-06-21
Publication date: 2003-01-02

Abstract

A selection process for automatic dispensers (100) is described which involves the following operating steps: defining, for each magazine (101) of the dispenser, at least a first series and a second series of compartments having primary and secondary picking-up priorities, respectively; allowing picking-up through the respective access member (105) from anyone of said plurality of compartments of the first series and allowing picking-up through the respective access member from anyone of the compartments of said second series exclusively following previous depletion of all products in said first series compartments. Also described is a device for putting said process into practice.

Description

It is known that there is a wide spread of vending machines or automatic dispensers in particular for food products such as beverages, sweets and the like which are typically installed in places where the above mentioned products are required to be organized and dispensed in a systematic manner to a number of users which is more or less important: let us think of schools, factories, public offices and the like, for example.
By way of example, a typology of widespread automatic dispensers is made up, from a structural point of view, of a stack of magazines comprising rotating discs set in motion by an electric motor in turn controlled by an electronic intelligence.
In more detail, this typology of dispensers involves that each rotating disc should be divided into a plurality of compartments and should be vertically aligned relative to the adjacent compartments. At a vertical region involving the whole extension of the compartment stack, a series of access members is provided, typically doors such disposed that each of them enables access to one compartment of a respective disc.
Practically associated with each disc is a respective door that following rotation of the disc, enables access to angularly consecutive compartments.
The automatic dispenser is also typically provided with a reader of "scaling-down" prepaid magnetic keys or a device capable of receiving and counting money to enable picking up of one or more food products offered by the dispenser.
Once the user has inserted a sufficient amount of money or an enabled prepaid key, a door locking-releasing system allows said doors to be opened and therefore access by the operator to the product he/she is interested in. As soon as the door corresponding to the product of interest is opened, the dispenser picks up the money or takes an equivalent value off the key, finally locking all doors again.
Presently, the automatic dispensers available on the market can have different operating modalities depending on the possibility of movement of the series of multi-compartment discs by the user.
In particular, in accordance with a first solution presently on the market, it is provided for the different compartments present on each disc forming the stack to be filled with one or more products. It is clear that the products in each compartment may also be different, but they must all have the same price on each respective disc.
By actuating the push-button setting the series of stacked discs in rotation, a customer can angularly move each compartment and can make a choice among all products loaded on each disc.
Since the number of doors is the same as that of the discs, the customer can practically chose any product present within the automatic dispenser.
In particular, the user has free access to each compartment and can examine and select the product he/she likes the most also among products of the same typology. Obviously periodically reloading of the dispenser is carried out in order to restore the products in the compartments where the same have been picked up.
In this way the dispenser during its operating life may hold identical products loaded thereinto on very different days in one and the same disc.
Since the consumer has free access to all products, this fact may give rise to disadvantageous consequences from some points of view.
It should be noted in fact, that the consumer is not able to select the products following an order correlated with their time limit or loading date within the vending machine, neither does this machine offer any guarantee in this connection.
Paradoxically, situations may occur in which very stale products are held within the automatic dispenser because any user never picked them up. It is also clear that a complete freedom of access by the user does not promote signalling to the vending machine operator of possible inefficiencies and mismanagements in the machine itself such as the presence of many empty compartments or deteriorated products inside the automatic dispenser.
For the purpose of at least partly obviating the above mentioned drawbacks, there are on the market also apparatus operating with a different philosophy in which each of the multi-compartment discs comprises a plurality of products of the same type and price and in which the customer is not able to make a selection among the products loaded on the disc. In particular, the user can only pick up a product from a starting compartment following a sequential and predetermined order imposed by the machine.
More specifically, once the products in the first compartment are used up, the angularly adjacent compartment will be available to the consumer and so on until depletion of all the products in all compartments present on a multi-compartment disc.
Should a user try to open a door for access to the compartment of a disc when said door is not in alignment with the expected compartment in accordance with the preestablished machine sequence, the disc automatically rotates until the door is brought into alignment with the compartment immediately following that concerned with a previous picking-up.
It is clear that the above described dispenser typology does not allow the user to select every and any product that is present on a predetermined disc even if, in this way, the drawback concerning a possible presence of stale products is eliminated and inadequate operating conditions of the dispenser are obviated.
While this second operating modality for sequential access to the different products present on the individual multi-compartment discs is devoid of the drawbacks typical of random-access vending machines, it is clear that the impossibility of a user making a selection among several products of the same time is not very appreciated.
In fact, it should be noted that the "random-access" apparatus was particularly successful exactly due to the possibility offered to a consumer of examining the different products present on the same disc and having the same price and freely making a choice without the machine imposing a selection sequence previously established in an absolute manner.
After the above statements, it is a fundamental aim of the present invention to provide a selection process and a selecting device designed for use on vending machines or automatic dispensers capable of substantially obviating all the above mentioned drawbacks.
In particular it is a main objective of the present invention to offer a new selection process and a new selecting device that can be easily embodied both in new dispensers and in dispensers of the traditional type.
It is a further fundamental objective of the invention to provide a selection process and device enabling the qualities both of the conventional random-access systems and the conventional systems involving a predetermined sequential access to be joined together.
Further features and advantages will become more apparent from the detailed description of a preferred but not exclusive embodiment of a process and a device capable of putting said process into practice in accordance with the present invention. This description will be taken hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings given by way of non-limiting example in which:

Fig. 1 is a diagrammatic view of a selecting device in accordance with the invention and of an automatic dispenser embodying such a device;
Fig. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of operation of a selection process and device for automatic dispensers in accordance with the invention; and
Fig. 3 is a block diagram showing a further example of operation of a selection process and device for automatic dispensers in accordance with the invention.

With reference to the drawings, an automatic dispenser diagrammatically represented by a chain line and embodying a selecting device and a selection process in accordance with the present invention has been generally identified by reference numeral 100.
The automatic dispenser 100 is in particular intended for dispensing food products and it conventionally comprises a plurality of magazines 101 which are disc-like shaped for example and are disposed in vertical superposed relationship with each other so as to define a substantially cylindrical structure.
Preferably, each disc-shaped magazine is provided with a plurality of compartments 102 each designed to house at least one respective food product; in the embodiment shown an automatic dispenser having eight disc-shaped and mutually superposed magazines is provided which magazines can be set in rotation by an electric motor 103 placed at a base region 104 of the automatic dispenser.
Clearly the dispenser may comprise a greater or smaller number of magazines without departing from the inventive idea of the present invention.
As said, each magazine is provided with a plurality of compartments 102 which are mutually adjacent and, following the rotation imposed by the electric motor to the magazine stack, can be in turn angularly moved.
It should be also noted that for the purpose of enabling picking up of the products contained in the automatic dispenser, at least one access member 105 is provided which operates at each magazine 101 and is adapted to be moved between a closed condition where it inhibits picking up of the food product or products from the corresponding compartment, and at least one open condition, in which it enables access to the respective compartment 102 of the magazine. Since the user can accede to each compartment 102 of each magazine 101 only through the respective access member 105 (consisting of either a flap door or a sliding door for example), the electric motor defines movement means capable of carrying out a relative displacement between the magazine and the access member so that, due to alignment of the access member with the compartment in which the user is interested, picking up of the food product is made possible.
Since most of the vending machines presently on the market operate against payment, the dispenser is provided with locking means 106 preferably active on each access member and selectively movable between a lock condition, in which it keeps the access member to the closed condition, and a release condition, in which it enables passage of the access member from the closed condition to the open condition for picking up the product.
Both the electric motor 103 driving the different magazines in rotation and the locking means 106 (and therefore the access members 105) are advantageously coordinated by a selecting device 1 in accordance with the invention. Device 1 is able to receive the user's commands, to control and coordinate the operating conditions of the different magazines 101, the access members 105, the locking means 106 associated therewith, and the movement means 103, so as to enable or not picking up of a food product from a compartment depending on occurrence of predetermined conditions.
In the connection, the selecting device 1 comprises a control unit 2 to which a sensor unit 3 detecting the angular position of the different magazines 101 and an angular lock system 4 stopping rotation of the different magazines according to predetermined pitches are interlocked.
It should be noted in fact that for the purpose of ensuring a very efficient structure of low cost and high sturdiness, the electric motor used is of the continuously-operated type and an angular-lock system 4 of the electro-mechanical type is provided which is switched on by unit 2 and is able to intervene on pegs 5 integral with the magazine stack and disposed at predetermined pitches from each other.
Practically, since the angular movement of the different magazines is to be carried out by constant steps so as to ensure a perfect setting in register between the angular position of the different compartments and the respective access members to the doors, said angular movement is for example upon command of an electro-mechanical hook of the lock system 4 by the control unit causing intervention of said lock system and clinging to said pegs rigidly carried by the rotating structure with which the different magazines are associated.
Only after hooking of the concerned peg, the electric motor 103 is directly switched off, by intervention of a switch controlled by the lock system 4 through intervention of unit 2.
Also operatively connected with unit 2 are input members 6 typically comprising a drive means 7, consisting of push-buttons for example, to set the electric motor in motion and therefore operate movement of the different magazines, as well as a device for credit reception 8.
In particular, the credit-reception device can operate either on ready money (portion 8a) or on "scaling-down" pre-paid keys or cards (portion 8b) or following any other similar criterion.
At all events it is clear that from the credit device 8 a signal is sent which is necessary to unit 2 to verify whether and which products can be made available to the user.
Output members 9 such as optical displays and/or acoustic actuators can also be interlocked to the control unit 2.
As already said, the dispensing device typically comprises more than one magazine.
In this case, in accordance with the present invention, the control unit 2, with reference to each magazine, is able to identify and allocate a primary-picking-up priority index I₁ to a first series of compartments of such a magazine and a secondary-picking-up priority index I₂ to a second series of compartments not yet emptied of the same magazine.
Practically, for each magazine the control unit 2 is able to know the number of compartments present, to detect by means of sensors or other modalities as better specified in the following, which compartments are empty and to allocate at least two differentiated picking-up priority indices (a primary index I₁ and a secondary index I₂) that the control unit will use to manage the picking-up priority of the different products from the individual compartments of the dispensing device.
Still in accordance with the invention, the control unit 2 is active on the locking means 106 to initially enable picking up through the respective access member 105 from anyone of the compartments of the first series of each magazine, thereby enabling picking up through the respective access member from a compartment belonging to the second series exclusively following previous depletion of all products in the compartments of the first series, obviously still with reference to one and the same magazine.
From a structural point of view, the central processing unit (CPU) may be made up of an electronic circuitry suitably planned so as to manage the above described functional operations and those to be described in the following or, more advantageously, of a programmable unit or CPU with which a memory is associated, together with a memory-resident program capable of programming the CPU so as to cause the functional operation of same as herein described.
The selection device in accordance with the invention also comprises first sensor means capable of detecting passage from a closed condition to an open condition of each of the members for access to the respective compartments.
Such a passage is detected and signalled to the control unit that in this way can modify the priority indices I₁ and I₂ of the corresponding compartment.
More specifically, once the actual opening of an access member is detected, picking up of the respective product is assumed and therefore the control unit modifies the respective index associated with the concerned compartment from I₁ (if the compartment was of the first series) to I₀ (index for an empty compartment) or alternatively from I₂ (if the concerned compartment belonged to the second series) to I₀ (index for an empty compartment).
It should be noted that from a structural point of view the first sensor means can be mere switches associated with the doors and adapted to detect opening of same. Second sensors (not shown) may be also provided which are able to verify and signal to the control unit, a condition of occurred reloading of the empty compartments.
The control unit, on receiving such a signal from the second sensors, is able to allocate a secondary priority index I₂ to all reloaded compartments and preferably, during this step, to allocate a primary priority index I₁ to the compartments not yet emptied that have not been reloaded.
In other words, when a reloading is carried out, typically the control unit allocates a primary picking up priority to those compartments in which the products had not been used up, allocating a secondary picking up priority to those newly reloaded.
The above described selecting device enables a selection process to be carried out which can be implemented via software, in the case of use of a programmable CPU.
The process comprises the following steps:

defining, for each magazine, at least a first series comprising a plurality of compartments each carrying at least one respective product having a primary picking-up priority; and
defining, for each magazine, at least a second series differentiated from the first series comprising possible compartments not yet emptied of the same magazine each carrying at least one respective product having a secondary picking-up priority;
enabling picking up through the respective access member from anyone of said plurality of compartments of the first series;
enabling picking up through the respective access member from anyone of the compartments of said second series exclusively following previous depletion of all products in the compartments of said first series.

In more detail, definition of the first series typically takes place during an initialization or first reloading step in which all products present in the different magazines are allocated a primary picking-up index I₁.
Allocation of one or more compartments to the second series takes place through the following further specific steps:

passage of one of the access members of the first series to the open condition is first determined;
the respective compartment is then eliminated from the first series and, should a reloading be carried out on such a compartment, the same is allocated to the second series.

With reference to the enable step for opening of the doors of the first or second series, the process in accordance with the invention entails the sub-steps clearly detailed by way of example in the accompanying Fig. 2.
In particular, after checking the presence of an enable signal (at 50) from possible members designed to receive the credit in the form of money or a prepaid card, it is verified whether the concerned compartment belongs to the first series (at 51).
In other words it is verified whether the compartment where the user is trying to carry out opening of the door surely belongs to the compartments having a primary priority index.
If that is so, opening is enabled and detected (at 52, 53) and, as pointed out above, the concerned compartment is removed from the first series and allocated to the compartments with index I₀ (empty compartments; at 54).
If, on the contrary, the compartment the door of which the operator is trying to open does not belong to the first series, it is verified whether there are other compartments of the first series in the same magazine (at 55) and, if that is so, a displacement of the magazines is carried out so as to bring a compartment of the first series into alignment with the access doors (at 56).
If a request condition for door opening still exists by the user, the previously described sequence (at 50, 51, 52, 53 and 54) is carried out, opening of the door is enabled and the concerned compartment is eliminated from the first series.
If an attempt is made for carrying out opening at a compartment that does not belong to the first series and if other compartments of the first series do not exist in the same magazine, a verification is carried out in order to establish whether the concerned compartment belongs to the second series or not (at 58).
In this case a procedure similar to that previously described for the first series begins.
In fact if the concerned compartment belongs to the second series opening is allowed and the compartment itself is removed from the second series (at 59, 60 and 61).
On the contrary, if the compartment does not belong to the second series, a verification is carried out for establishing whether other compartments of the second series exist in the same magazine (at 62) and if that is so, the necessary displacement for alignment with the opening door is carried out (at 63).
If an opening request by the user still exists, the previously described sequence (at 50, 51, 55, 58, 59, 60 and 61) is carried out again, opening is allowed and the concerned compartment is removed from the second series.
Operation of the apparatus is well apparent from the above description and enables the different magazines to be brought to an emptied condition with a picking-up order following two priority levels.
Obviously, if necessary, a system involving more than two priority orders may be implemented which will obviously be more complicated.
As already said, Fig. 3 shows a further simplified alternative embodiment of the process and the device in accordance with the invention. In particular, in this case the control unit is still able to define, for each magazine, both a first series of compartments having a primary picking-up priority and a second series of compartments having a secondary picking-up priority; in detail, unit 2 enables picking up (by means of the locking means) through the access member from anyone of the compartments of the first series and enables picking up (still by means of the locking means) through the respective access member from one of the compartments of the second series only following previous depletion of all products from the compartments of the first series. Should the device operate according to the process shown in Fig. 3, as soon as one compartment of the first series is opened and therefore a condition of open door is detected, this compartment is removed from the first series and directly allocated to the second series (see blocks 70, 71, 72 and 73 in Fig. 3). Should an attempt be made (block 70) to accede to a compartment that does not belong to the first series, movement of the magazine would take place until alignment of another compartment of the first series of the same magazine, provided it is available.
If other compartments belonging to the first series were not available (block 74 in Fig. 3), then the device would carry out conversion of all compartments of the second series to compartments of the first series repeating the cycle from block 70 in Fig. 3.
It is clear that if the apparatus should perceive an opening request for a compartment that does not belong to the first series while other compartments of the first series are still available on the same magazine, the necessary displacement to a compartment of the first series (preferably the closest to that for which the preceding opening request was made) would take place, as described from block 76 in Fig. 3.
Also in the case of the process described in the flow chart in Fig. 3 and therefore in the case of adopting a device capable of putting this process into practice, it is clear that an initialization step and/or an initial step of loading said compartments is possible in which each compartment is at all events allocated to the first series of compartments. As regards the selecting device capable of accomplishing the above described process, it comprises a control unit similar to that previously described for the process depicted in Fig. 2 and active on the locking means to enable access to anyone of the compartments of the first series and also active on such locking means to enable access to anyone of the compartments of the second series only when the products of the compartments of the first series are used up.
Also in the case of an apparatus for accomplishing the process depicted in Fig. 3 the first sensor means 105 is required for detecting passage from a closed condition to an open condition of each of the access members so that the control unit may allocate a secondary (second series) priority index to the compartments for which said open condition occurred.
From a structural point of view the control unit may once more be made up of a unit programmable to CPU and a software program to be stored in a memory 11 associated with the CPU.
The invention achieves important advantages.
It should be noted in fact that due to the invention, on the one hand the user can see all the products inside a vending machine and on the other hand, he/she has some freedom of choice.
The user in fact can select anyone of the products of the first series and access to products of the second series is inhibited only if products having a primary priority index are still available.
Due to the above described philosophy, elimination of all products is ensured without running the risk that some of them may stay inside the dispenser for long periods of time.
In particular, as already said, on each reloading all the newly loaded products receive a secondary picking-up priority index, i.e. they are allocated to the second series so that the user first uses up the staler products.
It should be noted that due to the process simplicity and the simple structure of the apparatus for putting it into practice, the invention can be embodied both in new automatic dispensers and in preexistent dispensers operating with modalities different from that being the object of the invention.

Claims

A selection process for automatic dispensers of articles, preferably food products, said automatic dispensers being of the type comprising:

at least one magazine (101) provided with a plurality of compartments (102) each designed to house a respective food product;

at least one access member (105) designed to be put in register with said magazine (101) and able to operate between a closed condition, in which it inhibits picking up of the food product or products from the corresponding compartment, and at least one open condition in which it allows access to a respective compartment of said magazine; and

means (103) to move the magazine (101) and access member (105) relative to each other and sequentially bring one of said compartments (102) into alignment with a corresponding access member (105);

locking means (106) active on each access member and adapted to be selectively activated between a lock condition, in which they retain the access member in the closed condition and a release condition in which they enable passage of the access member to the open conditions;

said process being characterized in that it involves the following operating steps:

defining, for each magazine, at least a first series comprising a plurality of compartments each carrying at least one respective product having a primary picking-up priority; and

defining, for each magazine, at least a second series, differentiated from the first series, comprising possible compartments of the same magazine having a secondary picking-up priority;

operating the locking means (106) to enable picking-up, through the respective access member (105), from anyone of said plurality of compartments of the first series;

operating the locking means (106) to enable picking-up, through the respective access member, from anyone of the compartments of said second series exclusively following previous depletion of all products in said first series compartments;
A process as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that said step of defining the second series involves the following further steps:

determining passage to an open condition, which passage is carried out on access members at compartments belonging to the first series;

eliminating from said first series, the compartments for which said open condition occurred;

verifying a condition of occurred reloading in the empty compartments; and

allocating the reloaded compartments of each magazine to the second series.
A process as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that said step of defining the second series involves the following steps:

determining passage to an open condition, which passage is carried out on access members at compartments belonging to the first series;

eliminating from the first series, the compartments for which said open condition occurred and allocate them to said second series.
A process as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that an initialization step is provided in which a primary picking-up priority is allocated to all compartments of each magazine.
A process as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2, characterized in that said enable step for carrying out picking-up from compartments of the first series comprises the following sub-steps consecutive in time:

a) checking the presence of an opening request for a predetermined access member;

b) checking whether the compartment located in register with said access member belongs to the compartments of the first series of the respective magazine or not;

if that is so, driving the locking means to a release condition to enable access to the compartment and picking-up of the product, said compartment from which the product has been picked up being consequently removed from said first series;

in the negative, checking whether other compartments belonging to the first series exist and if that is so, driving said movement means (103) to move the magazine and the access member relative to each other and align a compartment of said first series with said access member;

repeating the preceding steps a) and b).
A process as claimed in claim 4, characterized in that said enable step for carrying out picking-up from compartments of the second series comprises the following sub-steps taking place sequentially in time;

c) checking the presence of an opening request for a predetermined access member placed in register with a compartment that does not belong to the first series;

d) checking the absence of compartments of the same magazine belonging to the first series;

e) checking whether the opening request is on an access member of a compartment of the second series, and:

if that is so, driving the locking means to a release condition to enable access to the compartment and picking-up of the possible product, said compartment from which the product has been picked-up being removed from the second series;

in the negative, checking whether there are other compartments belonging to the second series and, if that is so, driving the movement means (103) to move the magazine and the access member relative to each other so that a compartment of the second series is aligned with said access member;

repeating the preceding steps c), d) and e).
A process as claimed in claim 2, characterized in that once a condition of occurred reloading of the empty compartments has been ascertained, a step is provided for allocating the compartments that have not been emptied and have not been reloaded to the first series.
A process as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that before enabling access to any compartment, the presence of an enable signal from a credit reception device (8) is ascertained.
A selecting device for automatic dispensers of articles, preferably food products, said automatic dispensers being of the type comprising:

at least one magazine (101) provided with a plurality of compartments (102) each designed to house a respective food product;

at least one access member (105) designed to be put in register with said dispenser (101) and able to operate between a closed condition, in which it inhibits picking up of the food product or products from the corresponding compartment, and at least one open condition in which it allows access to a respective compartment of said magazine; and

means (103) to move the magazine (101) and access member (105) relative to each other and sequentially bring one of said compartments (102) into alignment with a corresponding access member (105);

locking means (106) active on each access member and adapted to be selectively activated between a lock condition, in which they retain the access member in the closed condition and a release condition in which they enable passage of the access member to the open conditions;

said selecting device being characterized in that it comprises at least one control unit capable of:

allocating a respective primary-picking-up priority index I₁ to at least a first series of compartments of said magazine; and

allocating a secondary-picking-up priority index I₂ to at least a second series, differentiated from said first series, of compartments of the magazine;

said control unit being active on said locking means to allow access through the access member to anyone of said plurality of compartments of the first series, and to allow access through the access member to anyone of the compartments of said second series exclusively following a preceding ascertainment that all products in the compartments of said first series are depleted.
A device as claimed in claim 9, characterized in that said control unit allocates said secondary-priority index I₂ to compartments that are not empty of the second series of each magazine.
A device as claimed in claim 9, characterized in that it comprises first sensors (105) capable of detecting passage to an open condition of each of said access members and signal it to said control unit; the latter consequently modifying said priority index I₁, I₂ of the corresponding compartment from primary I₁ or secondary I₂ picking-up priority index to index I₀ corresponding to an empty-compartment condition.
A device as claimed in claim 9, characterized in that it comprises first sensors capable of detecting and signalling to said control unit, passage to an open condition of each of said access members, said control unit doing the necessary to eliminate from the first series, the compartments for which the open condition has been detected and allocate them to the second series.
A device as claimed in claim 11, characterized in that it comprises second sensors capable of ascertaining a condition of occurred reloading of said empty compartments and signalling it to said control unit, the latter consequently allocating a respective priority-picking-up index I₂ to each reloaded compartment.
A device as claimed in claim 9, characterized in that said control unit comprises at least one programmable unit or central processing unit (CPU) and a software program to be stored in a memory (11) associated with said CPU.
A software program for programming a control device to CPU (10) for automatic dispensers, said software program being arranged to configure the control device so as to make it adapted to put into practice a selection process as claimed in anyone of claims 1 to 8.
A data medium adapted to receive a software program as described in claim 15.