The present invention relates to a laundry delivery apparatus, a method for automatic release of a suspended piece of laundry using the laundry delivery apparatus, and the use of a laundry delivery apparatus for automatic release of a suspended piece of laundry.

In industrial laundries, the use of automated laundry delivery apparatuses has contributed to the increase in efficiency in handling laundries.

A fully automated laundry delivery apparatus comprises a unit wherein pieces of laundries are picked up from a pile of laundry and delivered to other modules for continued handling of the pieces of laundry.

However, in some industrial laundries, where space is limited, a fully auto mated laundry delivery apparatus is not an option due to the presence of more than one module, e.g. the module for picking up a piece of laundry from the pile of laundry and delivering the piece of laundry to a delivery chamber of the laundry delivery apparatus, and a laundry receiving module for continued han dling of the piece of laundry.

Today, this problem is solved by only having laundry delivery apparatus in stalled in an industrial laundry, where a human operator maintains the opera tion of receiving a piece of laundry from the delivery chamber of the laundry delivery apparatus. This is disclosed in WO 2019/137585 A1 .

However, in the aforementioned publication, the operator will have to pull the piece of laundry presented at the delivery chamber free of the laundry delivery apparatus. The process of repeatingly pulling many pieces of laundry over a prolonged period of time, may result in the operator having ergonomic prob lems. The object of the present invention is inter alia to reduce the work load on a human operator, and increase the efficiency of the laundry delivery apparatus.

Summary

In view of this object, a laundry delivery apparatus having an automatic laundry release function, is provided

In an embodiment, the laundry delivery apparatus for picking up a piece of laundry e.g. a towel from a pile of laundry and presenting the piece of laundry at a delivery chamber to an operator, comprises a first manipulator arm, a sec ond manipulator arm, a conveyor, a second surface, a nipping region defined between the conveyor and the second surface, a delivery chamber, an upper sensor, and a lower sensor.

In an embodiment, the method for picking up a piece of laundry from a pile of laundry using a laundry delivery apparatus is disclosed, comprises transferring the piece of laundry onto a conveyor, conveying the piece of laundry towards a nipping region defined between the conveyor and a second surface, detect ing an end part (trailing edge) of the piece of laundry, suspending the piece of laundry from the nipping region above a delivery chamber of the laundry deliv ery apparatus, detecting the presence of a human hand within the delivery chamber or detecting a human hand being moved into the delivery chamber, releasing the suspended piece of laundry from the nipping region upon detec tion of a human hand within the delivery chamber.

In this way, the human operator will receive the piece of laundry without having to pull the piece of laundry, and the efficiency of the laundry delivery apparatus is increased in that the process of releasing the piece of laundry is automated. Brief description of the drawings

Fig. 1 A is a schematic view of an embodiment of the laundry delivery apparatus of the present invention.

Fig. 1 B is a schematic view of an alternative embodiment of the laundry deliv ery apparatus of the present invention.

Fig. 2 is a schematic view of an operator introducing his hand into the delivery chamber of the laundry delivery apparatus of the present invention.

Fig. 3 is a schematic view of the laundry delivery apparatus, the apparatus having released the piece of laundry, the operator having gripped the released piece of laundry.

Fig. 4 is a schematic view of the laundry delivery apparatus showing a first manipulator arm in operation.

Fig. 5 is a schematic view of the laundry delivery apparatus showing a second manipulator arm in operation.

Fig. 6 is a schematic view of the laundry delivery apparatus showing a first piece of laundry having been conveyed into a retained position. Fig. 7 is a schematic view of the laundry delivery apparatus showing a third piece of laundry being picked up.

Detailed description The invention will now be explained in more detail below by reference to the drawings. Figures 1 a and 1 b show embodiments of a laundry delivery apparatus for pick ing up a piece of laundry 7 e.g. a towel, from a pile of laundry 10 and presenting the piece of laundry 7 at a delivery chamber 5 to an operator, comprising a first manipulator arm 8, a second manipulator arm 9, a belt conveyor 2 including an endless belt defining a first movable surface, a second surface 3 opposite an end of the first surface, a nipping region 4 defined between the first and second surfaces, a delivery chamber 5, an upper sensor 11 , and a lower sen sor 6.

The second manipulator arm 9 is for transferring the piece of laundry 7 from the first manipulator arm 8 to the conveyor 2 by releasing the piece of laundry 7 at a position above the conveyor 2, and the conveyor 2 is for conveying the piece of laundry 7 towards the nipping region 4.

The second surface 3 may be defined by a second belt conveyor, a roller, or any similar arrangement and may be moving passively by the moving of the conveyor 2, or actively by, e.g., a motor.

An upper sensor 11 is arranged to determine when an end part E (a trailing edge) of a piece of laundry 7 advanced by the conveyor 2 reaches the nipping region 4, and is configured to send a stop signal to a controller (not shown) controlling the movement of the conveyor 2, thereby stopping the movement of the conveyor 2 to retain the trailing edge E of the piece of laundry 7 by a clamping by the nipping region 4, with a leading portion F of the piece of laun dry 7 hanging freely suspended.

The upper sensor 11 may by way of example be a 3D vision sensor and may detect the trailing edge E of the piece of laundry 7 using visual image recogni tion, as described in the following publications: “A Study on Handling System for Cloth Using 3-D Vision Sensor, 3403-3408, Hiroaki Kobayashi et al. , 2008”, “ Vision System and Flexible Robot Hand for Cloth Handling Robot System, Seiji Flata et al., International Conference on Control, Automation and Systems 2008 Oct. 14-17, 2008 in COEX, Seoul, Korea”, “Using Depth and Appearance Features for Informed Robot Grasping of Highly Wrinkled Clothes, Arnau Ramisa et al.”.

Below the nipping region 4 is a delivery chamber 5 for receiving the piece of laundry 7 which is retained by and suspended from the nipping region 4.

A lower sensor 6 for detecting if a human hand is located within the delivery chamber 5 or for detecting if a human hand is being moved into the delivery chamber 5. When detecting the presence of a human hand or the moving of a human hand into the delivery chamber 5, the lower sensor 6 sends a signal to the controller (not shown) controlling the conveyor 2 or controlling the conveyor 2 and the second surface 3 to start moving, until the trailing edge of the piece of laundry 7 has been conveyed completely through the nipping region 4, thereby releasing the piece of laundry 7 from the nipping region 4, and allowing the piece of laundry 7 to fall into the delivery chamber 5 and be gripped by the operators hand as it falls freely.

The nipping region 4 may be formed by arranging the conveyor 2 and the sec ond surface 3 in a way, wherein a part of the moving surface of the conveyor 2 is close to or in contact with a part of the rotating surface of the second surface 3, thus resulting in a nipping action acting on a piece of laundry 7 when passing through this nipping region 4, where a piece of laundry 7 passing through the nipping region 4 thus will be retained when the conveyor 2 is de activated. When a last end part (trailing edge E) of the piece of laundry 7 is in the nipping region 4, and the conveying movement has stopped, the piece of laundry 7 will then be retained and suspended from the nipping region 4 above the delivery chamber 5 of the laundry delivery apparatus 1 , clamped between the first conveyor 2 and the second surface 3. In an embodiment, the upper sensor 11 may be arranged at a predetermined distance from the nipping region 4. The upper sensor 11 will thus send a signal to the controller when a trailing edge E of a piece of laundry 7 passing the upper sensor 11 has been detected, resulting in the piece of laundry 7 being retained with the trailing edge E on the second conveyor 2 at a desired dis tance from the nipping region 4 when the belt conveyor 2 is stopped. This may be of advantage where e.g. the pieces of laundry are particularly long or heavy. Fig. 1 b is a schematic view of an alternative embodiment of the laundry deliv ery apparatus 1 , wherein the nipping region 4 is defined between the conveyor

2 and rotatable roller defining the second surface 3. As schematically indicated the roller may be supported by a spring, which will allow the nipping region 4 to compensate for laundries of different thickness. In the case of the second surface 3 being defined by a belt conveyor as shown in fig 1.a, the belts will flex or yield, thereby allowing a nipping region 4 to compensate for laundries of different thickness.

Fig. 2 is a schematic view of an operator introducing his hand into the delivery chamber 5 of the laundry delivery apparatus 1 , which delivery chamber 5 is monitored by a lower sensor 6, which may be a photocell or any other detection apparatus suitable for detecting the presence of a human hand. When the hand of the operator passes the lower sensor 6 in the delivery chamber 5, the lower sensor 6 will send a signal to a controlling unit (not shown) e.g. a con troller, which controls the conveyor 2 or both the conveyor 2 and the second surface 3, whereupon the conveyor 2 or the conveyor 2 and the second surface

3 will begin moving thereby releasing the piece of laundry 7.

Fig. 3 is a schematic view of the laundry delivery apparatus 1 having released the piece of laundry 7 which is caught by the operator who then transfers the piece of laundry 7 onwards for further processing. The releasing controller activates the conveyor 2 or both the conveyor 2 and the second surface 3 for a limited time, thereby conveying a next piece of laun dry 7 through the nipping region 4, until the trailing edge of that piece of laundry 7 has travelled into the nipping region 4.

The delivery chamber 5 may contain a bin for collecting pieces of laundry not caught by the operator.

Fig. 4 - 7 show schematic views of the initial steps of transferring a piece of laundry 7 from a pile of laundry, onto the conveyor 2, and finally into the nipping region 4 between the conveyor 2 and a second surface 3, inside a housing 1 of the laundry delivery apparatus.

Fig. 4 is a schematic view of the laundry delivery apparatus 1 showing a first manipulator arm 8 picking up a piece of laundry 7 from a pile of laundry 10, and a second manipulator arm 9 ready to grab a first piece of laundry 7 held by the first manipulator arm 8.

Fig. 5 is a schematic view of the laundry delivery apparatus 1 showing the second manipulator arm 9 having grabbed the first piece of laundry 7 from fig. 4, and ready to release the piece of laundry 7 at a position above the first conveyor 2 and showing the first manipulator arm 8 having already picked up a second piece of laundry 7a from the pile of laundry 10.

Fig. 6 is a schematic view of the laundry delivery apparatus 1 showing the first piece of laundry 7 having been partly conveyed through the nipping region 4 and being suspended therefrom at a trailing edge E of the first piece laundry 7. The figure further shows the second manipulator arm 9 having grabbed the second piece of laundry 7a, and the first manipulator arm 8 having travelled towards the pile of laundry 10. Fig. 7 is a schematic view of the laundry delivery apparatus 1 showing the piece of laundry 7 being suspended at the nipping region 4 above the delivery chamber 5 of the laundry delivery apparatus housing 1 , awaiting a release sig nal from the lower sensor 6 indicating the presence of a human hand or the movement of a human hand into the delivery chamber 5, the second manipu lator arm 9 standing by holding the second piece of laundry 7a, or moving the latter up along the first conveyor 2 as shown in fig. 5, and the first manipulator arm 8 standing by, having picked up a third piece of laundry 7b from the pile of laundry 10.