1. Field of the Invention
A system and method for storing and sequencing a plurality of luggage items. More specifically a system and method for automatically storing, sequencing, and retrieving luggage items from a storage area.
2. Description of the Prior Art
When passengers travel via commercial conveyance methods such as on airliners, the conveyance company often allows the passengers to check their luggage items. The conveyance company and their agents, collect, process, transport, and return to the passenger the checked luggage items upon arrival at the final passenger's final destination.
During processing of the luggage items by the conveyance company, it is often necessary to hold luggage items in process for a period of time. An example of this occurs when a passenger checks in very early for a flight. That passenger's luggage items must be held until the airline is ready to load the flight.
In the current state of the art, stored luggage is managed a number of ways. For example, the stored luggage items may be manually stored in an area designated for this purpose. Such manual handling methods tend to be labor intensive, prone to worker injury, and prone to manual miss-handling error.
According to another example method, as illustrated in FIG. 1, stored luggage items may be sorted to, and accumulated on, long sections of belt conveyor. Each section of belt conveyor may hold a group of luggage items that have common attributes such as flight number or departure time window.
Certain issues associated with such conveyor storage systems have been recognized. For example, such systems require substantial floor space and capital investment. Furthermore, the handling of stored bags in large groups obviates the possibility of processing individual bags or smaller groups of bags. Such handling may be necessary when a passenger changes itinerary or when a flight schedule changes unexpectedly. When these events happen, the entire group, or entire belt section, must be re-sorted to separate the desired luggage item(s) from the group. These handling constraints impair the flexibility of these systems.
In view of the foregoing, there remains a need for improvements to systems and methods for storing and sequencing luggage items.