Technical Field

This invention relates to document transport systems for transporting documents from a stack to a discharge area, of the kind including first feeding means adapted to feed a document from said stack along a feed path, and sensing means located adjacent said feed path and adapted to provide a sense signal repre¬ senting the presence of a plurality of said documents in an overlapped condition.

The invention has a particular application in the field of automatic banking where automatic teller machines (ATM's) are used for a variety of functions. One possible function of such ATM's is to feed legal documents from a stack to a print station where data is printed thereon, whereafter the documents are fed to a discharge area.

Background Art

A document transport system of the kind specified is known from U.S. Patent No. 3,937,453, which discloses a banking machine for dispensing paper currency. Upon detection of more than one document fed from a stack, a clutch is energized to cause a separator roller to rotate and thereby allow only the top document to be further fed. However, as an addi¬ tional feature, a further double document detector in the feed path is operable, if a double document is detected, to actuate a divert gate which diverts both documents to a collection bin. The known system has the disadvantage of being large in size.

Disclosure of the Invention

It is an object of the present invention to provide a compact document transport system of the kind specified.

- CfREA

OMPI

Therefore, according to the present invention, there is provided a document transport system of the kind specified, characterized by stop means located in said feed path, first and second rollers oppositely located adjacent the feed path and adapted to drive the leading document of said over¬ lapped documents against said stop means, actuating means adapted, in response to said sense signal, to disable said first roller thereby enabling said second roller to move each of the remaining overlapped docu¬ ments against said stop means, and second feeding means adapted to feed the superimposed documents to document collection means.

A further advantage of a document transport system according to the invention, is that it is relatively simple in construction and, therefore, low in cost.

In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention, there is provided apparatus for feeding documents from a storage area which includes a first drive roller for feeding seriatim a number of docu¬ ments from the storage area into a section of a guide chute which extends in a direction which is slightly longer than the length of one of the documents. Mounted at one end of the section of the guide chute is a stop member xOr stopping the movement of the documents. Detecting means positioned adjacent the first drive roller .detects the presence of an over¬ lapped document and operates a mechanism for adjusting ^' the operating condition of a second drive roller engaging the overlapped documents such that each of the individual documents of the overlapped document are moved into engagement with the stop member and into registry with each other from where the stacked documents are fed into a collection bin.

Brief Description of the Drawings

One embodiment of the invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Fig. 1 is a side view of one construction of a document transport system;

Fig. 2 is a side view of two documents in an overlapped condition;

Fig. 3 is a side view of a document transport system according to the invention;

Fig. 4 is a partial side view of the document transport system of Fig. 3 showing the position of documents in an overlap condition prior to movement into a position engaging the stop member; Fig. 5 is a partial side view of the document transport system of Fig. 3 showing the stacked posi¬ tion of the overlapping documents when moved against the stop member.

Best Mode for Carrying Out the Invention Referring now to Fig. 1, there is shown a side view of one construction of a document transport system suitable for use in automatic teller machines which may comprise a number of such systems mounted in a side-by-side arrangement for feeding a document 20 from a stack of documents 21 stored in a storage bin 22. Located adjacent the storage bin 22 is a feed roller 24 rotatably mounted, on a movable arm 26 and driven in a feed, direction by a motor 28 in any con¬ ventional manner for feeding the top document 20 of the stack 21 from the storage bin 22. The document 20 is moved along a pathway 30 by the feed roller 24 into engagement with a drive roller 32, which, in coopera¬ tion with a pressure roller 34a, drives the document through a movable gate member 36 and into engagement • with a plurality of drive rollers 38-42 inclusive located adjacent a horizontally extending guide chute

45. The drive rollers 38-42 and cooperating pressure rollers 34b-d position the document in a document holding section of the guide chute 45 generally indi¬ cated by the numeral 43 in Fig. 1. During this move- ment, the drive rollers 38-42 inclusive are operated by a drive belt 50 driven in a first direction by ^" a motor 48 which drives the document past a detection station which may comprise a light source 44 and a photodetector 46. upon sensing the end of the docu- ment 20 the photodetector 46 generates a signal in a manner that is well known in the art to reverse the rotational operation of the motor 48 and thereby the movement of the drive belt 50 together with the drive rollers 38-42 inclusive engaged by such belt. The signal generated by the operation of the photode¬ tector 46 also operates the gate member 36 to position the gate member in a horizontal direction as shown in dotted lines in Fig. 1.

Reversing the direction of movement of the drive belt 50 results in the drive rollers 38-42 inclusive moving the document 20 into engagement with the drive rollers 52 and 54 which are operated by the drive belt 50 and cooperate with pressure rollers 34e, 34f to move the document 20 to a position adjacent a print mechanism 56 where data is printed thereon and then released for movement by the feed roller 58 and cooperating pressure roller 34g to discharge the document to a discharge area -(not shown) . When an overlapped document generally indicated by the nu er- al 80 (Fig. 2) comprising two or more individual documents 20 in which one overlaps the other by a distance d (Fig. 2) is removed from the storage bin 22 by the feed roller 24, a thickness detection station comprising a light source-photodetector combination 58 and a document length detector station comprising a light source-photodetector combination 60 which de¬ tects the overlapping condition of the documents 20

in a manner that is well known in the art. The over¬ lapped document 80 (Figs. 4 and 5) is then transport¬ ed by the drive rollers 38-42 inclusive to the docu¬ ment holding section 43 (Fig. 1) of the guide chute 45 in the manner described previously. Since the over¬ lapped document 80 has to move completely past the photodetector 46 in order for the document to be transported along the guide chute 45 to the print mechanism 56, the document holding section 43 is required to have a length equal to at least the length of two consecutive documents in order to accommodate an overlapped document 80. Once the trailing edge of the overlapped document 80 moves past the photodetec¬ tor 46, the rotational movement of the drive rollers 38-42 inclusive are reversed by the drive belt 50 as a result of a signal generated by the photodetector 46 and the document is then transported to a gate member 62 which has been rotated into the path of the docu¬ ment by the control signal generated by the detectors 58 and 60. The document 80 deflected by the gate member 62 is engaged by a drive roller 64 which posi¬ tions the document in a collection bin 66. It is obvious that if three or more documents are removed from the storage bin 22 in an overlapping condition forming a document whose length exceeds the length of the document checking section 43, the trailing edge of the document cannot move past the photodetector 46 resulting in a jam condition requiring that the docu¬ ment be removed by hand. Referring now to Fig. 3, there is shown a document transport system according to the present invention which has the same basic configuration as shown in Fig. 1 except that the drive roller 42 and its associated pressure roller 34d have been removed, thus shortening the document holding section 43 of the guide chute 45 to the length of one of the documents 20. Also included in the system is a stop member 68

that has been located adjacent the feed roller 40 at the end of the guide chute 45, thus defining the length of the document checking section. The distance between the photodetector 46 ^" and the stop member 68 is substantially the length of one of the documents 20, such that the photodetector 46 responds when the leading edge of a single document abuts the stop member 68. The pressure roller 34c associated with the drive roller 40 has been mounted on one end of an L-shaped rockably mounted arm member 70 whose other end is engaged by a spring member 72 normally rocking the arm member and the pressure roller 34c in a count¬ er-clockwise direction into engagement with the feed roller 40. Also engaging the arm member 70 is the armature member 74 operated by a solenoid 76 which is energized by signals produced by the photodetectors 58 and 60 to rotate the arm member 70 about a pivot point 78 in a clockwise direction removing the pressure roller 34c from engagement with the drive roller 40. In the operation of the feed apparatus disclosed in Fig. 3, the movement of an overlapped document 80 (Figs. 4 and 5) by the feed roller 24 from the stack 21 and past the thickness photodetector 58 and the length photodetector 60 results in the photodetectors 58, 60 outputting a first control signal indicating the presence of an overlapped docu¬ ment. This control signal will energize the solenoid 76 which rocks the arm member 70 clockwise removing the pressure roller 34c from engagement with the drive roller 40 (Fig. 4) . This first control signal also rotates the gate member 62 to a blocking position in the guide chute as shown in Fig. 3. ^' At this time, the overlapped document 80 is driven toward the stop member 68 by the drive rollers 38 and 40. As the top document 20 of the overlapped document 80 is stopped by the stop member 68, the lower document of the overlapped document 80 is engaged by the drive roller

40 which, due to the disengagement of its associated pressure roller 34c, will produce a slight frictional force on the lower document thus allowing the lower document to be driven under the first document to a position engaging the stop member 68 and in registry with the first document (Fig. 5) as a result of the driving force produced by the drive rollers 38 and 40. If more than two documents are involved in this opera¬ tion, the action of the drive rollers 38 and 40 allows the last document of the overlapped document 80 to be driven beneath the other documents of the document 80 to a position engaging the stop member. As the last document moves against the stop member 68, the mailing edge thereof moves past the photodetector 46 which will generate a second control signal deenergizing the solenoid 76, rotating the gate member 36 to a horizon¬ tal position as shown in dotted lines in Fig. 3, and stopping the operation of the motor 48. The deener¬ gizing of the solenoid 76 results in the spring member 72 (Fig. 3) rotating the arm member 70 in a counter¬ clockwise direction moving the pressure roller 34c back into engagement with the stack of aligned docu¬ ments 20 located against the stop member 68. After a predetermined time period, the motor 48 is again operated in a direction reversed to its previous direction which rotates the drive rollers 38, 40, 52 and 54 in a clockwise direction driving the stack of documents into engagement with the gate member 62 which deflects the documents into the collection bin 66.

It will be seen from this construction that the apparatus is capable of processing any number of documents 20 which are fed from the storage bin 22 in an overlapped condition while providing a compact structure for the apparatus.