CN110782598A

CN110782598A - Automatic clothes extracting and throwing system

Info

Publication number: CN110782598A
Application number: CN201911069986.7A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 王钰棋
Original assignee: Langjie Co Ltd
Current assignee: Langjie Co Ltd
Priority date: 2019-09-30
Filing date: 2019-11-05
Publication date: 2020-02-11

Abstract

The invention discloses an automatic clothes extracting and putting system, wherein a front door, a touch screen, a card reader, a printer, a bagger and a loudspeaker are arranged on a kiosk; the front door is used for dry cleaning a customer to put in clothes to be washed and extracting the washed clothes; the touch screen is used for enabling a customer to complete all corresponding operations; the card reader is used for completing payment or identifying customers, and the card reader can also be upgraded into a new payment mode, such as QRCode scanning, RFID and chip reading, and the like; the printer is used for printing receipts; the invention provides a full-automatic method and a full-automatic device for self-service dry cleaning putting and taking, wherein the full-automatic method and the full-automatic device are used for taking laundry bags, and the bagging device can be arranged outside a front door.

Description

Automatic clothes extracting and throwing system

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of automatic dry cleaning and conveying, in particular to an automatic clothes extracting and throwing system.

Background

Dry cleaning is the washing of clothes with organic chemical solvents, including a dry-in-dry-out wash to remove oil or stains. The dry cleaning is mainly characterized in that the fabric of the clothes is prevented from being damaged by washing, the fabric is not shrunk or deformed, the color and luster protection is good, the clothes are not easy to fade, the hand feeling is soft, the ironing is convenient, the oil stain or stain on the clothes can be thoroughly cleaned, and the dry cleaning is suitable for the fabrics which are not easy to wash and fade. The fabric has the advantages of extremely good fabric fiber deformation prevention and fiber color maintenance, can prolong the service life of clothes, and the clothes after dry cleaning also have the special effects of disinfection, sterilization, moth prevention and convenient preservation, and the operation steps are as follows: the first step is a pretreatment, i.e., a desmutting treatment. It is characterized by that it uses artificial adjuvant to make the advance treatment of the dirt which is seriously polluted and the stain which is insoluble in dry-cleaning solvent (such as fruit juice, nail polish, paint and ink, etc.), and does not use water, and firstly uses the coating process of washing clothes, then uses water to wash clothes; and the second step, main washing. Putting the pretreated clothes into a dry cleaning machine, comprehensively washing with a dry cleaning solvent and throwing (drying) the clothes; and thirdly, post-treatment, mainly aiming at removing residual dry cleaning solvent in the clothes and ironing and shaping.

Although there are many semi-automated dry cleaning transport systems on the market, none of the fully automated garment delivery and pick-up systems fully address the overall operation of the dry cleaning station such as: take clothing, hand clothing to guests, collect money, even retrieve complaining clothing back to store owners, and the like.

Disclosure of Invention

In order to achieve the above object, the invention adopts the technical scheme that the invention provides an automatic clothes extracting and throwing system, which comprises a kiosk, and is characterized in that a front door, a touch screen, a card reader, a printer, a bagging device and a loudspeaker are arranged on the kiosk;

the front door is used for dry cleaning a customer to put in clothes to be washed and extracting the washed clothes;

the touch screen is used for enabling a customer to complete all corresponding operations;

the card reader is used for completing payment or identifying customers, and the card reader can also be upgraded into a new payment mode, such as QRCode scanning, RFID and chip reading, and the like;

the printer is used for printing receipts;

the bagging device is used for taking the laundry bags, can be arranged outside the front door or in the front door, and has the advantage that the machine can only send the bags to customers allowed to put clothes;

the loudspeaker is used for providing voice to guide a customer to complete the operation;

all operations are guided by characters on the touch screen, and voice guidance is provided at the same time.

Preferably, a PLC control unit, a POS system, a signal interface, a processor, a barcode scanner, a keyboard, a mouse, and a monitor are disposed inside the kiosk, and the processor is electrically connected to the touch screen, the barcode scanner, the card reader, the printer, the touch screen, the keyboard, the mouse, the monitor, the PLC control unit, and the POS system, respectively.

Preferably, the circuit connection is a circuit board integrated mounting connection.

Preferably, the PLC control unit controls the corresponding emergency manual switch, communication interface, bagger, swing door, front door lock, swing door lock, ac power supply, laundry transfer unit, laundry conveyor belt motor, pusher, front door sensor, and return sensor.

Preferably, the alternating current power supply is 120V-240V commercial power.

Preferably, the PLC control unit adopts WIFI or an optical fiber connector to perform network connection.

Compared with the prior art, the clothes washing device has the advantages and positive effects that the customer satisfaction degree is improved to the maximum extent by matching with a humanized computer operation interface, the clothes order of the customer can be recognized by the clothes washing device, and then the clothes washed by the customer are collected to a background for washing and returned to the customer.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention, the drawings needed to be used in the description of the embodiments are briefly introduced below, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are some embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious for those skilled in the art to obtain other drawings based on these drawings without inventive labor.

FIG. 1 is a front view of a kiosk of an automatic garment pick-up and delivery system according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a computer system hardware link of an automatic clothes pick-up and delivery system according to the present embodiment;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a hardware link of a control system of an automatic clothes pick-up and delivery system according to the present embodiment;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating the operation of the automatic clothes pick-up and delivery system of the present embodiment for delivering cleaned clothes to a kiosk;

FIG. 5 is a side view of a dry cleaning conveyor system of an automated garment pick-up and delivery system according to an embodiment;

FIG. 6 is a top view of the dry cleaning conveyor system of the automatic garment pick-up and delivery system according to this embodiment;

FIG. 7 is a computer software flow chart of an automatic clothes pick-up and delivery system according to the present embodiment;

FIG. 8 is a computer software flow chart of an automatic clothes pick-up and delivery system according to the present embodiment;

FIG. 9 is a computer software flow chart of an automatic clothes pick-up and delivery system according to the present embodiment;

FIG. 10 is a computer software flow chart of an automatic clothes pick-up and delivery system according to the present embodiment;

FIG. 11 is a computer software flow chart of an automatic clothes pick-up and delivery system according to the present embodiment;

FIG. 12 is a computer software flow chart of an automatic clothes pick-up and delivery system according to the present embodiment;

FIG. 13 is a computer software flow chart of an automatic clothes pick-up and delivery system according to the present embodiment;

FIG. 14 is a computer software flow chart of an automatic clothes pick-up and delivery system according to the present embodiment;

FIG. 15 is a computer software flow chart of an automatic clothes pick-up and delivery system according to the present embodiment;

FIG. 16 is a computer software flow chart of an automatic clothes pick-up and delivery system provided in the present embodiment;

FIG. 17 is a computer software flow chart of an automatic clothes pick-up and delivery system according to the present embodiment;

FIG. 18 is a computer software flow chart of an automatic clothes pick-up and delivery system according to the present embodiment;

FIG. 19 is a diagram illustrating the components of a clothes transfer system of an automatic clothes pick-up and dispensing system according to this embodiment;

FIG. 20 is a flow chart illustrating the steps of moving the clothes from the front end to the back end and moving the clothes from the back end to the front end in accordance with the automatic clothes pick-and-place system provided in the present embodiment;

FIG. 21 is a flow chart illustrating the steps of moving clothes from the front end to the back end and moving the clothes from the back end to the front end in accordance with the automatic clothes pick-and-place system provided in the present embodiment;

Detailed Description

The present invention is further described below with reference to the drawings and embodiments, and it should be noted that the features of the embodiments and embodiments of the present application can be combined with each other without conflict.

In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention, however, the present invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described herein and, therefore, is not limited to the specific embodiments disclosed in the following description.

In an embodiment, the present invention is an automatic garment pick-up and delivery system, fig. 1-6 and 19 show how the automatic system can automatically provide dry cleaning pick-up and delivery services to customers unattended, the system collects order information when the customers place garments and sends the information to the system terminal 10, the system terminal assigns the customers' garments to a slot point on a garment transfer belt, so that the computer can rotate the slot point to a position to be picked up to deliver the garments to the corresponding customers, and the system allows the customers to pick up and place the garments through the same door, which is a more space-saving design.

The system can cooperate with an external POS (Point of sale) system to share client and order information, and can also independently complete all operations, because the system is provided with a database, the database of the POS is not required to be relied on.

Referring now to fig. 1, there is shown in fig. 1 a kiosk 10 in the form of a cubic box, the front door 11 allowing dry cleaning customers to dispense laundry and extract the washed laundry, the customer being able to do all the operations via the touch screen 12, the printer 14 being able to print a receipt, the adjacent card reader 13 being able to pay or identify the customer, the card reader also being able to be upgraded to new payment means such as QRcode scanning, RFID and chip reading, etc., for the customer's convenience, the system also providing washing of the laundry bag, the customer being able to take the laundry bag from the bagger 15, the bagger being able to be mounted outside the front door 11 or inside the front door 11, the advantage being that the machine can be issued only to customers who are allowed to dispense laundry, all the operations being directed by text on the touch screen and also by voice.

The system adopts a modular design, the self-service terminal kiosk can be placed in any direction of the clothes conveyor belt, the conveyor belt can be in various shapes, the system can be installed in any space, the self-service terminal kiosk can be installed on an outer wall, a hall, a forecourt and the like of a building, and the self-service terminal cabinet adopts a sealed design and can be installed in any indoor and outdoor environment.

As shown in FIG. 2, the touch screen 20 and barcode scanner 21 allow a back-end operator to enter a ticket number or scan a ticket number into the central processor 28. the processor 28 also communicates with the card reader 13, the printer circuit 14 and the touch screen port 12, the diagnostic monitor 25, the mouse 26 and the keyboard 27 to facilitate operator information input into the processor 28 to process data, the processor 28 also communicates with the PLC control unit 31, the POS system 30 via the signal interface 29, and these communications with the processor 28 can be made either internally or externally via the network cable, the processor 28 has the great advantage of not requiring a high configuration for the computer, a relatively inexpensive computer can be selected, and details regarding the operation of the computer will be described in detail below.

As shown in fig. 3, the control unit 31 will communicate with the following devices: the communications interface 29, the front door 11, the front door lock 34, the door lock 34 for locking the internal swing door 37, ensure that guests cannot reach the clothing behind the self-service terminal kiosk by a double door security design where the front door and the internal swing door cannot be opened simultaneously so that they can only reach their own clothing.

The clothes belt control system includes an emergency manual switch 36, a clothes transfer unit 38, a clothes belt motor 39, a pusher 40 for pushing the dropped clothes, a sensor 32 for detecting whether the front door 11 is opened, and a sensor 33 for detecting whether the clothes stay on the rotating door hook 52. the power source is a general one-way power source of 120V/240V.

The system booth adopts the design of a large-size cabinet, so that large clothes can be put in and taken out, and the edge of the revolving door 35 adopts a smooth gap design, so that larger clothes can smoothly pass through the revolving door.

As shown in fig. 4, the washed garment is placed by the operator from the hood 42 onto a garment transfer belt 48 which moves the garment to the desired position, all of which is controlled by the computer screen 20 and also receives data from the scanner 21, the garment transport belt being manually controlled by a controller 46, the controller 46 being located adjacent to an emergency brake 45, and the garment being hung from the garment transfer belt by a slot point 47.

As shown in FIG. 5, laundry is placed into the system through the kiosk cabinet 54 and if the customer requires quick release, after swiping a card or entering a telephone number, the machine screen displays quick release buttons to the returning customer to speed up the release process so that the returning customer does not have to enter repeated detailed information each time to release the laundry.

The dropped clothes pass through the rotary door 35 and then fall into the empty space cleared by the pusher 40, and the washed clothes are simultaneously put on the door hook 52 and delivered to the guest through the rotary door 35.

The customer may return bad clothes, the system will ask the customer to check their clothes and answer yes or no for satisfaction, if they choose no they can choose to hang any unsatisfactory clothes back into the kiosk through the revolving door, then the sensor 33 will detect if there is a clothes hanging on the revolving door, if there is a clothes, the clothes transfer unit will remove the clothes from the door hook 52 and put it on the clothes conveyer belt, if the customer forgets to take their clothes, the clothes transfer unit will be activated in the same way and send the clothes safely to the clothes conveyer belt, thus avoiding the next customer from taking the clothes forgotten, the machine will note which clothes are put back on the conveyer belt, so that the customer will take back the forgotten clothes when to return.

The garment transport unit 38 is computer controlled to move the garments from the garment transport belt 48 to the swing door hook 52 where they may be placed on conventional hangers which are then hung on the garment transport belt 48. if a customer takes a garment, the customer's garment is then transported to the destination location 58, the computer and all control elements are installed in the control room compartment 63 of the kiosk cabinet 54.

The clothes hole grooves on the conveying belt are designed into a V shape, and the V-shaped design ensures that the clothes incline towards the middle of the clothes hole grooves, so that the clamps on the clothes conveying unit can clamp the clothes more easily, and meanwhile, the clothes cannot fall off from the clothes conveying belt or the clothes conveying unit.

When the clothes are washed, the customer can choose to take the clothes immediately or take the clothes later.

Each order will have a single number, either POS system assigned or pre-printed on it, as shown in fig. 4, which can be scanned into the system via scanner 21 or directly entered from the touch screen, RFID if equipped with an OCR scanner, and the system can find the corresponding customer via the single number and direct the operator to hang the garment on the garment conveyor.

Figure 6 is a top view of the apparatus with the machine control cabinet 63 beside the door hook 52 and the revolving door 52, the customer placing the laundry into the cavity 83, the cavity 83 being separated from the customer standing area 84 by the compartment 85, the garment transfer unit 38 being located between the garment transfer belt 48 and the service cabinet 10, and the system back office platform at 90 where the operator can place the customer's garments onto the garment transfer belt.

A customer user interface:

figure 7 illustrates the user interface program flow that would be displayed on the front touch screen 12 of the kiosk 10, with the kiosk 10 also having a speaker 16 mounted to provide audio guidance to the customer to complete the operation.

Proceeding to step 100 after the "start" function, the touch screen displays a welcome interface prompting the customer to press a start button on the computer touch screen or swipe the card reader 13 (as shown in fig. 1) or select the "put clothes" or "get clothes" option, followed by step 200 (fig. 7) "wait for card swipe", at which point, the touch screen will display that the status is waiting for the customer to swipe the card reader 13, after the card is swiped, the system will verify the customer information, the customer can use the membership card, if the customer uses a credit card, the system will require the input of the cardholder's name for verification, meanwhile, the system can also be carried out under the condition of no card, such as the telephone number or the preset password of the client is used for confirming the client, if the system adopts the mode of paying when taking clothes, the card swiping step would be performed at the time of the garment removal and at this point the customer is not required to provide a name.

FIG. 8 illustrates a card swipe process, where step 305 tests whether the card swipe is valid, if it is determined that the card is broken or the card format is not compatible, the system proceeds to step 310, where an error prompt is displayed on the customer's touch screen, if the system displays valid information at step 305, the system reads the card information at step 315, if the system determines a membership card at step 320, the verification is accomplished by using the membership number at step 325, and if the system determines not a membership card at step 320, the system reads the card number, the card's expiration date, and the cardholder's name at 330.

Returning again to fig. 7, if the swipe card is not valid as shown at 300, the system front-end touch screen will go to the home page, and if the valid card number is verified at 300, the system will go to 500 to ask the customer to enter a phone number, and the speaker at the front-end will prompt the customer to enter a phone number.

At this point the system will go to step 600 where the card number entered via step 300 will match the phone number in step 500 and the system will find the customer name and membership data as shown in fig. 9, after step 600 the system will determine the customer ID at step 605, if a match is found at step 610 then step 620 will return the customer ID to the system and if the system does not find the corresponding customer ID then the system will jump back directly to customer interface step 600 at which point the system will go to new customer step 700 where the system will ask the customer to create a new account number, enter a new phone number at step 800 as shown in fig. 10, at step 805 the customer will be asked to enter a contact phone via the touch screen interface with a corresponding voice prompt, the user will enter the phone number at step 810, next at step 815 the new user profile is completed, if the system has a link to third party POS software, then this new user information is also uploaded to the third party POS software database at step 820,

as shown in fig. 7, step 900 checks whether the customer has clothing to pick up through the customer information obtained in step 600, as shown in fig. 11, step 905 checks the database of clothing transfer tapes to see if the customer has clothing on the conveyor, if no clothing is found in step 910, the system returns directly to step 900 to inform the customer that no clothing is picked up, if the customer's clothing is found on the conveyor in step 910, the system looks up the corresponding order number in step 915, if the system has a link to third party POS software, the system then queries the POS system whether the order is picked up in step 920, if the POS system informs that clothing is picked up, the system informs the customer that clothing is picked up in step 922, if the customer chooses not to pick up or chooses to put in quickly, the system jumps back to step 950, if the customer chooses to take clothing, then step 925 would instruct the system to pick up the guest's clothing while informing the third party POS software that the clothing has been picked up at step 930.

As shown in FIG. 7, step 950 will routinely check whether the customer has selected "quick drop", if so, step 1200 will begin letting the customer drop clothes, if not, the touch screen 12 will display at step 1000 when the customer has clothes to drop, and will proceed to step 1100, where the touch screen will display three options "Yes", "No", or "Express", if the customer has selected "No", the system will skip step 1300 to end the process, if the customer has selected "Yes" or "Express", or "Express" at step 950, the system will collect customer information, print a receipt, and create a drop record at step 1200.

As shown in fig. 12, if the customer selects "express" at step 1210, the process may proceed to 1250. if the customer does not select "express," the system may ask the customer how many clothes to send, at step 1220, the customer may enter how many clothes to send based on prompts and voice guidance on the touch screen, then at next step 1225, the touch screen may display questions asking the customer if a laundry bag is needed (as shown in fig. 12), then at step 1230, the customer may make a selection at step 1235, if the customer selects "no," the system may jump to step 1250, if the customer selects yes, the system may proceed to 1240, activate the laundry bag dispenser, at which time the system may activate control unit 31 (as shown in fig. 2 and 3) to dispense a laundry bag, then at step 1245, the system may prompt the customer to place clothes in a laundry bag, and then placed in a kiosk, and if the system does not have a laundry bag dispenser, the software system does not ask the customer if a laundry bag is needed and directly prompts the customer to place the laundry bag in the machine.

In step 1250 the kiosk's built-in printer prints two receipts, one copy for the customer to keep a record and the other copy and the clothing are placed together in a laundry bag to identify the customer to whom the package of clothing belongs, the kiosk's touch screen 12 displays the drop flow in step 1255 (shown in fig. 12) which functions to inform the customer device that a receipt will be printed and instruct them to place a receipt in the package and keep another receipt, in step 1260 the system asks the user if a receipt needs to be reprinted, the customer can answer the question in step 1265 via the touch screen, if they select "yes", the flow returns to step 1250. if they select "no", the system goes to step 1270, finally creates a customer drop clothing information in the database, in step 1270, the system database creates a list of customer IDs, number of clothes releases, dates and times of releases, expected return dates, and other information that is also sent to the third party POS software system, and the clothes release is completed at step 1300.

Referring to fig. 13, step 1300 of completing the transaction as referred to in fig. 7 shows the system returning the clothing to the customer and also providing an option for the customer to decide whether to return to unsatisfactory clothing, step 1305 shown in fig. 13 results from the check of step 900 in fig. 7 of "whether there is clothing to take", if there is no clothing to take, the flow returns to step 1360, and if there is clothing to take, step 1350, an instruction to take the article is given to the control unit 31 (shown in fig. 2 and 3) of the system.

Step 1310 depicts clothes washing, the system determines whether the single clothes is delivered in a single batch or in batches based on the size of the clothes, the system determines whether the clothes are all taken out at step 1350, if not, the system stays at step 1310 to pick up the clothes, and if the clothes are all taken out, the system activates the "turnstile" to deliver the clothes at step 1320 (FIG. 17).

As shown in the revolving door flow of fig. 17, step 1720 will check by the control system PLC31 (fig. 2 and 3) whether the front door of the machine is locked, and if locked, the control flow will go to step 17.4. if not locked, the control flow will go to 17.30, a command is executed by the control unit 31 (fig. 2 and 3) to lock the front door, then in step 17.40, the sensor of the control unit 31 (fig. 2 and 3) will determine whether the revolving door 35 (shown in fig. 5) is locked, if not locked, the control flow will go to 17.6. if locked, a command is executed by the machine control unit 31 (fig. 2 and 3) in step 17.50 to unlock the revolving door, in step 17.60, a command is executed by the control unit 31 (fig. 2 and 3) to rotate the revolving door, then in step 17.70 a command is executed by the machine control unit 31 to lock the revolving door, at step 17.80, the sensor in the machine control unit will determine whether the swing door is in the "extended" position, and if "no", control passes to step 1325 (FIG. 13); if so, step 17.90 causes the control unit 31 (FIGS. 2 and 3) to open the front door (as shown in FIG. 13) before proceeding to step 1325.

As shown in fig. 13, the "reject order" step 1347 requires the customer to indicate "yes" or "no" by pressing the corresponding button on the machine's touch screen 12, if the answer is "no", then control transfers to step 1360. if the answer is "yes", which means that clothing is rejected, then a "process reject order" step 1350 is performed, as shown in fig. 14, step 1351 displays a request for the customer to enter a telephone number, then the customer enters a telephone number, step 1352, selects "continue", so that the rejected order is archived in a database, which record includes the customer ID, telephone number, date and time of placement and other information, the system prompts the customer via the touch screen to place clothing on the door hook of the swing door, instructions to close the door, after the customer completes the process in accordance with the instructions, the "continue" button on the touch screen 12 can be pressed, the program proceeds to step 1369, the system will check if there is clothing on the swing door 35 (fig. 5) and if so, control will go to step 1395. if there is no clothing, go to step 1390 (fig. 17) and finally go to step 1395. the sensor 33 (fig. 5) that detects if there is clothing being returned will sense if it is occluded and if not, it means there is no clothing on the inside swing door, flow will go to 1400 (fig. 7); if occluded, then the acceptance of a return clothes command at step 1397 is performed (FIG. 18).

As shown in fig. 18, the process of processing rejected garments begins at step 18.10, where the system first finds an empty slot point (fig. 4) on the garment loading belt 48 (fig. 4, 5 and 6) to be reserved for rejected garments, then at step 18.20 the control unit PLC31 (fig. 2 and 3) moves the garment belt 48 to move the reserved clothes hook to the position of the garment transport unit 38 (fig. 5), and then at step 18.30 the garment transfer unit takes the rejected garment out of the door hook 52 (fig. 5) of the swing door to the reserved clothes hook, whereupon the system makes a record at step 18.40 containing the single number and the slot point number, then at step 18.50, a step like that marked at fig. 13 determines which single rejected garment, if any, a reject record is made by the system database at step 18.60, at the same time, a message is sent to the machine manager that there is a customer complaint, the system also goes to step 1400 of fig. 7, the touch screen 12 (fig. 1) will show completion, if not rejected, step 18.70 will tell the machine manager that the customer has forgotten his clothes on the revolving door, the system will also allow the customer to come back again to pick up their own clothes, so that the entire process is ended, the control flow goes to 1400 (fig. 7), and the touch screen 12 (fig. 1) will show completion.

After confirming on the machine control unit 31 (fig. 2 and 3) that the door is closed and locked, the player plays a "thank you" message and the flow of control goes to step 100.

Background operation interface

The back console includes a touch screen 20 (fig. 4), a barcode scanner 21, operation begins with a "show operator load screen" step 2000 (fig. 15), a back console interface is displayed on the touch screen 20 (fig. 4), "operator scan or enter order number" step 2005 (fig. 15) allows entry of an order number using an on-screen numeric keypad, or scanning of an order number using an additional scanner, "validate order" step 2010 will compare the order number entered at step 2005 with the order form in the database, "valid order? "step 2015 looks up the order entry corresponding to the order found in the database in step 2010 and sends to step 2020, otherwise the flow goes to step 2025.

The "find best load location" step 2020 places orders for the same customer as close to each other as possible, thus ensuring maximum time efficiency, and fig. 16 demonstrates this optimization algorithm.

As shown in fig. 16, step 2020.2 determines if the customer has other clothes hanging on the clothes conveyor, if not, step 2020.7 assigns the nearest clothes slot point from the shroud 42 (fig. 4) to the order, if so, then the nearest hanging order is determined in step 2020.3, then in step 2020.4 the process runs to determine if there is an empty slot next to the order found in step 2020.3, if there is an empty slot, the slot is assigned to the order being loaded, if not, another process runs in step 2020.5 to determine if there are additional orders belonging to the same customer that are already hanging on the conveyor and returns to step 2020.4, if not, then in step 2020.8 other nearest empty slots on the clothes conveyor are determined and assigned to the order being loaded, and then control returns to step 2030 (fig. 15).

The target load position is displayed on the back-office interface and the control system 31 (fig. 2 and 3) will move the position of the garment belt to the garment load position at step 2030 the system will automatically make the shortest path move and the back-office operator will confirm the load operation at step 2035, e.g., the operator can upload a garment, determine the upload position, manually enter a new upload position and determine the position, at which point the position of the uploaded garment on the garment belt is confirmed by the sensor 21 (fig. 4) located on the load shield 42 (fig. 4) or by the operator pressing a confirmation button on the back-office touchscreen 20 (fig. 4).

In the event that the operator selects a new position, a command is sent to the machine control unit 31 (fig. 2 and 3) to rotate the conveyor to the new position, steps 2045 and 2050 are executed if step 2040 confirms "yes", and the program returns to step 2000 if no.

If an order is not found in step 2015, a "show order not shown to operator" step 2025 shows the operator a message that an order was not found and requests that he or she please retry, then passes control to step 2000, which results in a rescan and another verification attempt.

"create clothes belt record in order database" step 2045 (fig. 15) creates a clothes belt movement record in the order database containing the clothes location, order number, load time, customer ID and other items of information, and finally "create load file for third party software" step 2050 creates a file and passes to the third party POS software system, and passes control back to step 2000.

Garment transfer unit

Garment transfer unit 38 is shown in fig. 19 and includes a vertical actuator 92, a horizontal actuator 93, a rotary actuator 94, an extension actuator 95, an angled clamp 96 and two jaws 97, each of which may be pneumatically or electrically driven.

As shown in fig. 20, when transferring garments from the garment transport belt 48 (fig. 5) onto the swing gate hook 52 (fig. 5), proceeding first to step 20.10, the garment transfer unit is first positioned to the home position, the angle clamp 96 is opened, the rotary actuator 94 is rotated to vertically align the clamping jaws 97 with the garment transport belt 48 (fig. 5), the vertical actuator is now in the low position, the horizontal actuator 93 is in its forwardmost position, and the extension actuator 95 is in the retracted position, then in step 20.20, the extension actuator 95 is extended, and in step 20.30 the angle clamp 96 is closed to grasp a garment hanger in the slot point 47 (fig. 4), proceeding to step 20.40, the vertical actuator 92 lifts the hanger to the top position of the slot, then proceeding to step 20.50 the horizontal actuator 93 moves to the intermediate position, pulling the garment off the garment transport belt 48 (fig. 4 and 5), then in step 20.60 the rotary actuator 94 is rotated 90 degrees to be parallel to the rotary door 35 (fig. 5), then in step 20.70 the horizontal actuator 93 is moved to its most reverse position (closest to the machine front cabinet 54 (fig. 5)), then in step 20.80 the vertical actuator 92 is moved to its bottom position, the hanger hook is hung on the rotary door hook 52 (fig. 5), then the angle gripper 96 is opened in step 20.90 to release the hanger, then in step 20.100 the extension actuator is retracted to move the gripper finger 97 away from the hanger, then in step 20.110 the horizontal actuator 93 is moved back to its neutral position, then in step 20.120 the rotary actuator 94 is rotated 90 degrees to vertically position the gripper finger to the garment transfer belt 48 (fig. 5), finally in step 20.130 the horizontal actuator 93 is moved to its most forward position, to which the garment transfer unit is returned to its original position.

As shown in fig. 21, when transferring garments from the swing door hook 52 (fig. 5) onto the garment conveyor belt 48 (fig. 5), first to step 20.10, with the garment transfer unit in the home position, the angle clamp 96 open, the vertical actuator in its bottom position, the rotary actuator 94 rotated to vertically align the clamping jaws 97 with the garment conveyor belt 48 (fig. 5), the horizontal actuator 93 in its forwardmost position and retracted to the reach actuator 95, then the horizontal actuator 93 moved to its intermediate position in step 21.20, then the rotary actuator 94 rotated 90 degrees in step 21.30 to bring the gripper fingers parallel to the swing door 35 (fig. 5), then the horizontal actuator 93 moved to its forwardmost position (closest to the front machine cabinet 54 (fig. 5)) in step 21.40, then the reach actuator 19 extended in step 21.50, then, in step 21.60, angle gripper 96 is closed, so that gripper fingers 97 grip the neck of the garment hanger, the vertical actuator 19 is then moved to its top position at step 21.70 to lift the garment off of the swing door hook 52 (figure 5), the horizontal actuator is then moved to its neutral position at step 21.80, and the rotary actuator 94 is then rotated 90 degrees at step 21.90, to vertically align the garments with the garment transport belt 48 (fig. 5), the horizontal actuator 93 is then moved to its forward-most position at step 21.100, the vertical actuator 92 is moved to its bottom position at step 21.110, and then, when the angle clamp 96 is opened at step 21.120, the hanger of the garment order is placed on the garment conveyor and the extension actuator is then retracted 21.130 to return the garment transfer unit to its original position, thereby completing the process.

It is important to point out that the automatic self-service dry-cleaning conveying system can receive orders of clothes or articles to be cleaned and send the cleaned clothes back to a customer, the vertical kiosk is provided with a front door for the customer to put down the clothes to be cleaned and then take back the cleaned clean articles through the front door, a user interface on a touch screen display screen can provide various options for the customer to meet different requirements input by the customer and also allow the customer to input special requirements, the requirements can be recorded in a database for reference of background workers, a card reader is convenient for payment transaction, a printer prints receipts for the customer, and dry-cleaning bags can be obtained from a convenient bag taking device.

The customer can bag the clothes to be washed and put into a kiosk, after the clothes are washed, the information of the clothes can be stored by a computer through bar code scanning, RFID or OCR scanning or manual input, then the information can be put on a clothes conveyer belt at the background to wait for the customer to pick up the clothes, and the customer can pick up the clothes through a front-end computer touch screen.

Although the present invention has been described with reference to the above embodiments, it should be understood that the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and other embodiments and equivalents thereof may be substituted for those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. An automatic clothes extracting and throwing system comprises a kiosk, and is characterized in that the kiosk is provided with a front door, a touch screen, a card reader, a printer, a bagging device and a loudspeaker;

the printer is used for printing receipts;

2. The automatic clothes extracting and throwing-in system according to claim 1, wherein a PLC control unit, a POS system, a signal interface, a processor, a bar code scanner, a keyboard, a mouse and a monitor are arranged inside the kiosk, and the processor is respectively in circuit connection with the touch screen, the bar code scanner, the card reader, the printer, the touch screen, the keyboard, the mouse, the monitor, the PLC control unit and the POS system.

3. The automated garment pick-up and delivery system according to claim 3, wherein the circuit connection is a circuit board integrated mounting connection.

4. The automatic garment pick-up and delivery system according to claim 1, wherein the PLC control unit controls the respective emergency manual switch, communication interface, bagger, revolving door, front door lock, swing door lock, ac power supply, garment transfer unit, garment conveyor motor, pusher, front door sensor, and return sensor.

5. The automated garment pick-up and delivery system according to claim 4, wherein the ac power source is 120V to 240V mains.

6. The automatic garment extraction and delivery system according to claim 4, wherein the PLC control unit is networked using WIFI or fiber optic connectors.