Gripping device for gripping sheet material

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9573787-B2
Application number	US-201314396430-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 22, 2013
Priority date	Apr 25, 2012
Publication date	Feb 21, 2017
Grant date	Feb 21, 2017

Abstract

A gripping device for gripping a sheet-material stack has at least two gripping elements for gripping a sheet-material stack disposed between the gripping elements, which gripping elements can be moved toward each other in order to grip the sheet-material stack. At least one of the gripping fingers of one of the gripping elements is tiltable from its starting position, in which it is oriented substantially parallel to the stack surface, into a tilted position, in which it is inclined toward the stack surface. With the gripping device any types of sheet-material stacks can be reliably and trouble-free removed from a container and held against gravity through grip-clamping.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A gripping device for gripping and transporting a sheet-material stack, which has at least two gripping elements for gripping a sheet-material stack disposed between the gripping elements, which are movable toward each other in order to grip the sheet-material stack through a grip-clamping, wherein the gripping elements respectively have at least one gripping finger which can be laid against a stack end-sheet located at that end of the sheet-material stack facing the respective gripping element such that the gripping finger aereally contacts the respective stack end-sheet, wherein at least one of the gripping fingers of at least one of the gripping elements is tiltable from a starting position (A), in which the gripping finger is oriented substantially parallel to the surface of the stack end-sheet facing it, into a tilted position (K), in which the gripping finger is inclined toward the surface of the stack end-sheet facing it,
wherein the gripping device has a stopping mechanism for stopping the relative motion of the gripping elements, in which the drive of the relative motion is automatically stopped as soon as an opposing force of the sheet-material stack generated upon the grip-clamping exceeds a certain value, and
wherein the gripping device has a belt which is mechanically coupled with one of the gripping elements, in order to move this gripping element relative to the other gripping element of the gripping device through the belt motion and in order to grip the sheet-material stack disposed between the two gripping elements through a grip-clamping, wherein the stopping mechanism includes that the belt tension is monitored by a sensor which is arranged to stop the drive of the belt motion when a certain belt tension is exceeded.

2. The gripping device according to claim 1 , wherein the tiltable gripping finger is tiltable in such a way that the outer end of the tiltable gripping finger, which faces away from the fastening of the tiltable gripping finger at the gripping element, is inclined, by the tilting, toward the surface of the stack end-sheet facing the tiltable gripping finger.

3. The gripping device according to claim 1 , wherein the tiltable gripping finger is tiltable around an axis which is oriented approximately parallel to the surface of the stack end-sheet facing the gripping finger and which encloses a non-zero angle with the direction of the gripping finger.

4. The gripping device according to claim 1 , wherein tilting the gripping finger shifts the point of application of the gripping force of the tiltable gripping finger to a gripping spot which lies in the center region of the sheet-material stack.

5. The gripping device according to claim 1 , wherein when the one or more tiltable gripping fingers are in the tilted position, the gripping elements exert a grip-clamping on the sheet-material stack, which is sufficient for firmly holding the sheet-material stack against its gravity through the grip-clamping.

6. The gripping device according to claim 1 , wherein the gripping element having the tiltable gripping finger is mechanically coupled with a belt, in order to move the gripping element relative to the other gripping element of the gripping device by the belt motion and in order to grip the sheet-material stack disposed between the two gripping elements through a grip-clamping, wherein the gripping element is mechanically designed in such a way that the drive of the belt motion also makes available the force for tilting the tiltable gripping finger.

7. The gripping device according to claim 1 , wherein at least the gripping fingers of one of the gripping elements are configured for a compensating motion which allows an adaptation of the position of the gripping fingers to non-uniform sheet-material stacks, wherein the gripping fingers are fastened to the gripping element in particular in such a way that they are movable, relative to the gripping element, along the direction perpendicular to the stack surface of the sheet-material stack, into mutually different positions.

8. The gripping device according to claim 7 , wherein the gripping element has two gripping fingers which are formed by a fork which for the compensating motion is rotatable around an axis which is oriented approximately parallel to the gripping fingers and preferably lies approximately on the perpendicular bisector between the two gripping fingers.

9. The gripping device according to claim 1 , wherein the gripping device is arranged to remove a sheet-material stack from a container which has at least one side wall with a meandering surface, and that the gripping device has two gripping elements with respectively at least two gripping fingers which are configured to penetrate into recesses of the meandering surface of the side wall of the container.

10. The gripping device according to claim 9 , wherein the side wall of the container, which has the meandering surface, has a projection-free section, so that the stack end-sheet of a sheet-material stack contained in the container can bulge out in this projection-free section toward the side wall, and that at least one of the gripping fingers, which is provided for penetrating into this projection-free section of the side wall upon gripping the sheet-material stack, is beveled at its outer end in such a way that it can penetrate between the stack end-sheet bulged out toward the side wall and the projection-free section.

11. An apparatus for processing sheet material, in particular value documents, which has a gripping device according to claim 1 , wherein the gripping device is arranged to insert the gripped sheet-material stack into an input pocket of the apparatus and/or wherein the gripping device is arranged to remove the gripped sheet-material stack from an output pocket of the apparatus.

12. A method for gripping a sheet-material stack by means of a gripping device according to claim 1 , for example for removing a sheet-material stack from a container, with the steps:
relatively moving the gripping elements toward each other through a relative motion of the gripping elements, in order to compress a sheet-material stack disposed between the two gripping elements and to grip it through grip-clamping, wherein at least one of the gripping fingers of the gripping elements is tilted from its starting position into its tilted position, and
automatically stopping the relative motion of the gripping elements as soon as a grip-clamping is achieved, in particular as soon as an opposing force of the sheet-material stack generated upon the grip-clamping exceeds a predetermined value, and
transporting the sheet-material stack gripped through the grip-clamping by means of the gripping device, wherein the grip-clamping for example removes the gripped sheet-material stack from the container.

13. The method according to claim 12 , wherein after the stopping of the relative motion the relative motion of the gripping elements remains stopped for a certain waiting period, and that after the waiting period a subsequent gripping of the sheet-material stack is carried out, upon which the relative motion of the gripping elements toward each other is started anew in order to produce a reliable grip-clamping of the sheet-material stack also in the case of a relaxation of the sheet-material stack.

14. A gripping device for gripping and transporting a sheet-material stack, which has at least two gripping elements for gripping a sheet-material stack disposed between the gripping elements, which are movable toward each other in order to grip the sheet-material stack through a grip-clamping, wherein the gripping

Assignees

• Giesecke & Devrient Gmbh

Inventors

• Sperl Markus
• Demmeler Erwin
• Werner Frank

Classifications

• B65H2220/01

  indicating an entity as a function of which control, adjustment or change is performed, i.e. input · CPC title

• B65H2405/5812

  pivoting the movable gripping part towards the other part · CPC title

• B65H31/3045 Primary

  on the outermost articles of the pile for clamping the pile · CPC title

• B65H2403/21

  Timing belts · CPC title

• B65H2701/1912

  Banknotes, bills and cheques or the like · CPC title