SPECIFICATION

This invention relates to a locker provided with a compartment system including several movable compartments placed in a closed casing provided with at least one stationary opening, in. front of which at control the movable compartments are placeable one at a time for insertion of luggage to be stored or for taking back stored luggage. When a compartment is placed in front of the opening, the other compartments are hidden in the locker, so that entrance to a compartment for others than service staff only can be made through said opening.

A locker of this kind is described in the UK applica¬ tion No 2 015 326. This kind of locker is often designed as wardrobes placed in cloakrooms in public institutions, such as in hospitals, theatres etc., in order to give a safe place for people to hang up one's things and to have them protected against theft, possible damage, etc., because they are hidden. The locker may also comprise several . compartment system sections located above one an- other. This kind of lockers are suitable to be used for temporary safe-keeping of goods in department stores, railway sta¬ tions or the like.

A very useful locker of this kind has several rotatable compartment system sections located above one another within a casing having as many openings as the number of sections placed in a vertical row. The width and height of the openings are adapted to the width and height of the front side of the compartments.

At the side of the opening or the vertical row of openings a control panel having a coin slot is provided. When a person has hang up his things or inserted some goods he wants to have stored in a compartment in front of an opening, he insert the payment into the coin slot. A card is delivered. This card has marks on it, which designate the compartment in question. The marks may for instance be punched holes or magnetic information recorded on a magne¬ tic tape provided on the card.

When the card has been delivered the compartment system or the compartment system section including the compartment just occupied is rotated, so that this compartment dis¬ appears into the casing and a new, empty compartment is placed in front of the opening. Thus, goods loaded in occupied compartments are hidden in the casing.

Then, when the person wants to collect his things he inserts the card into a particular slot. The compartment system rotates then so that the compartment corresponding to the marks on the card is rotated to come in f ont of the opening.

In order to have a safe-keeping which is as safe as possible and also to have the locker ready for the next person who wants to have his things stored it is important to have an operating time as short as possible from the time when a person has occupied a compartment until the next unoccupied compartment is placed in front of the opening.

The foregoing objects, as well as others, which are to become clear from the text below, is achieved in that the locker in accordance with the invention has a processing . unit provided with a memory, in which the processing unit stores a code for each compartment, which code includes information regarding if the compartment is occupied or not, and a driving mechanism for the compartment system controlled by the processing unit. When one of the compart¬ ments has beed occupied, the processing unit marks this in the memory, searches in the memory after an unoccupied compartment, which fulfills predetermined preference demands and which has the shortest path way to the opening or the openings and controls the driving mechanism to place the found compartment in front of an opening.

In accordance with another object of the invention where the casing has several openings and a compartment system section for each opening, the openings are provided with closeable doors controllable by the processing unit. Even if unoccupied compartments in more than one of the compartment system sections is placed behind the openings only one at the time of the doors of the openings is DM

opened. When the compartment behind the open door has become occupied, the processing unit gives preference to one of the other compartment system sections to have the door open in front of an unoccupied compartment. In accordance with still another object of the inven¬ tion the processing unit is controlling the driving mecha¬ nism for the compartment system so that, after that an unoccupied compartment has become occupied, as few occupied compartments as possible will be located in front of an opening behind a closed door.

Further features and advantages of the invention are to become apparent from the following description of the preferred embodiments and variants shown in the drawings in which: FIG. 1 shows a prespective view of a first embodiment of a locker having the features in accordance with the invention;

FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of the control system for the locker in accordance with the invention; FIG. 3 shows a perspective view of a second embodiment of a locker having the features in accordance with the invention.

In FIG. 1 a locker is shown, which has the function of a wardrobe and which comprises a rotating compartment system 1, hereinafter referred to as a rotor. The rotor comprises a cylindrical unit provided with a floor 2 and a roof 3 and having an open envelope surface. The rotor is provided with a central bearer 4, which is rotatably journaled in bearings at least in its lower end. The rotor is divided in vertically elongated compartments by aid of walls 5 extended vertically between the floor and the roof and radially between the bearer 4 and the periphery of the rotor. A shelf 3" is shown in the upper part of each compartment. The rotor 1 is placed in a casing 6, which is closed and has an opening 7 in one of its side walls. The height and the width of the opening 7 correspond substatially to the height and the width of every compartment at the periphery of the rotor 1. A compartment is shown in front

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of the opening 7. At the side of the opening a control panel 8 is located and provided with a coin slot, a card slot and some operating keys for a presumptive user of the compartment system to press upon. At the side of the panel 8 another control panel 9 is located. The panel 9 is provided with operating elements for manual operation of the rotor. The panel 9 is normally hidden behind a locked door 10 and is only intended to be used by service staff. In the corner down at the right a driving motor 11 having an axis 12 is shown. The rotation of the asis 12 is transmitted via the gear box 13 to a vertical axis provided with teeth (not shown) . The bearer 4 is also provided with teeth (not shown) on a part of it located under the floor of the rotor 1. A chain is placed around the part of the bearer provided with teeth and the vertical axis. The rotor is rotated when the motor axis 12 is rotating. Other types of driving mechanisms are usable as well. The control electronics are provided in a housing 14 near the motor 11. It is to be noted that FIG. 1 represents a pricipal drawing and that the design and localisation of the panels 8, 9, the motor 11 and the housing 14 can vary widely.

An optical indicator including a light source 15 and a light indicator 16 is located in the opening 7 on its upper and lower edge, respectively. An indicator operating with reflection and having a light source and a light indicator placed side by side is applicable as well for the same purpose. The indicator is activated as soon as an object passes through the opening in the direction in to or out from the compartment located behind the opening 7. FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of an embodiment of the control device of the locker.

When a person hangs up his things in the empty compart¬ ment in front of the opening 7 the indicator 15, 16 is activated. The activation can also be made in another way, for instance may the person presses a key on the panel 8. In FIG. 2 this is indicated by the activation unit 18. At activation a signal is fed from the unit to a processing unit 19, which preferably is a micro computer, and also to a first timing circuit 20. In turn, the processing

activates control elements 21 for the locker, such as overload protection or the like. The activation time of the timing circuit 20 is so long that the control elements have time to come into their operational mode within this time. When the activation time of the timings circuit 20 is ended, the circuit 20 feds a trigger signal to a second timing circuit 22 and also to the processing unit 19, which order a lightening of an indication 23, which for instance may have the text "INSERT PAYMENT" at the side of the coin slot. The second timing circuit 22 feeds a "1"-signal to one of the inputs of and AND-gate 24 during its activation time.

A signal is also fed from the timing circuit 22 to the processing unit 19, which keeps the compartment system control elements 21 activated during the activation time of the timing circuit 22. Thus, these elements 21 are activa¬ ted only when someone intends to use the locker. It is to be noted that the two timing circuits 20, 22 and the AND- gate 24 may be an integral part of the processing unit 19, especially if the unit is a microcomputer. They may then be parts of the computor program.

The activation time of the timing circuit 22 is chosen to be so long that a person shall have the time to pick up money after having hang his things up. A suitable time is ca. 40 seconds. If the payment is inserted within this time a signal from the AND-gate 24 is fed to the unit 19. The unit feeds a signal to the payment unit 45 indicating that the payment is accepted and a signal to a driving unit 25, which first controls that the door 26 in front of the compartment is closed and thereafter controls the motor 11 to rotate the rotor 1, so that a new unoccupied compartment is placed in front of the opening 7.

When a signal is received from the AND-gate 24 the processing unit 19 makes a random code for the compartment just occupied. This code is written into a memory 27. Also, the code is fed to a unit 28, which puts marks on a storage card or the like.

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Further on, when the person wants his things back, he puts his card in a card slot. The code on the card is read by a card reader 30 and is fed to the unit 19. The unit 1 9 searches in the memory after the compartment having this code and controls the driving unit 25 to control the motor 11 to rotate the rotor so that the compartment in question will be placed in front of the opening 7.

In the memory space recerved for each compartment a special bit is recerved to indicate whether the compartment is occupied or not, i.e. a so called flag is set if the compartment is occupied. When a person has put his card in and collected his things the flag in the memory is removed, i.e. the bit for occupation indication is made to a "0". Also, it is possible for the service staff to indicate a compartment as occupied from the panel 9 and to set a flag for a particular compartment by manual control. It is also possible to remove the flags in the memory for the compartments from the panel 9.

When a compartment is occupied the processing unit 19 searches in the memory 27 after an compartment without a flag set having as short path way to the opening 7 as possible and controls via the driving unit 25 the motor 11 to turn the rotor 1 the shortest way in order to place the compartment in question in front of to the opening 7. The rotor is turnable in both directions.

FIG. 3 shows a second embodiment of ^" a locker in accor¬ dance with the invention. In this locker three compartment section systems are placed one on top of the other. Two cases are thinkable. The systems can all be seated on the same rotor, in which case solid partitions are provided between adjacent compartments belonging to different sys¬ tems, or else the systems are placed in several separately turnable rotors placed on top of each other.

In FIG. 3 also another embodiment of the control panel 25 is shown. It is mounted recessed in a locked door 36 located at the side of the openings 34 placed in a vertical row in the casing 37. Behind the door the service panel is located (not shown) .

As is shown in FIG. 3 the openings are provided with sliding doors 38, 39, 40, of which all 38, 39 are closed except one 40. In order to obtain the best possible securi¬ ty against theft and damages it is important that as many as possible of the compartments behind the openings are unoccupied. This depends upon that if someone wishes to break into the locker to get hold of the content, he first choses to try to open one of the closed doors 38 and 39. It is true that an alarm is triggered on at every form of damage done to the locker, but it can take some time for the service staff to reach it. A thief can have time enough to clear out a compartment and to disappear before anyone comes to the locker.

At this embodiment of the locker such search of the codes in the memory 27 is wanted that minimizes the risk that an occupied compartment is located behind an opening, even if the opening is shut by a closed door.

At an embodiment of the locker having compartment system sections above one another on the same rotor, the processing unit 19 operates such that, after that a com¬ partment has been occupied, it first makes a search through the memory 27 after a position, in which all compartments placed on top of each other are unoccupied. If such a position cannot be found, it searches through the memory 27 after the position where all the compartments except one is occupied and having the shortest path way to the vertical opening row etc. It is to be noted that the rotor is turned every time after that a compartment has been occupied, even if the most favourable position is the one that is present behind the opening row when a compartment has been occu¬ pied. Therefore, sometimes the rotor may be rotated a full turn after that a compartment has been occupied.

In order to increase the security against that some¬ body shall be able to make a wellgrounded guess that loaded goods may be hidden behind a particular one of the closed doors, it is not the same door as the latest opened door that is opened after that the rotor has been turned to a new position but some of the other doors in front of an unoccupied compartment. This means that the rotor has to be

driven to a position, where a compartment is unoccupied in a section below or above the latest occupied compartment. It is only if all the unoccupied compartments are in the same section as the last occupied section that the same door is opened after that the rotor has been turned.

At an embodiment of a locker having compartment system sections where every section includes a rotor of its own, and the compartment in front of the opening 34 becomes occupied, the processing unit 19 writes the randomized code for this compartment into the memory 27, controls the driving device for the door in front of the opening for this section to close the door, controls the driving device for the door in front of an unoccupied compartment above or below the occupied compartment to open the door and controls the driving mechanism for the latest occupied compartment to drive the rotor for this compartment system section, so that an unoccupied compartment comes in front of the opening, which now has a closed door.

It will be understood that ohter practical modifica- tions may be made within the scope of invention.