Abstract: An automated storage and retrieval system for managing the contents of a garment-on-hanger (GOH) storage area includes an autonomous “transporter” that is configured to transport GOH items between the processing area and the storage area and an automated “forager” that can hold and manipulate a GOH item to place it in, or retrieve it from, a storage location. The transporter and forager work together to automatically store and retrieve GOH items, riding on a system of rails and moving between vertical levels on an elevator. Standardized “mother hooks” are used from which the GOH items hang, which may be held by a picker arm of the forager, and inserted into slots in storage areas and on the transporter. Blades on the forager may be inserted to either side of a GOH item to allow adjacent GOH items to be displaced during manipulation.

Abstract: An in-transit identification system for an overhead conveyor that transports items equipped with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags uses a guide track arrangement and an antenna frame movably connected thereto. An RFID antenna is mounted to the frame and a bidirectional translation mechanism moves the frame relative to the guide track arrangement along a first direction parallel to a transport path of the conveyor and a second direction perpendicular to the first direction. A controller controls the translation mechanism to move the frame along the second direction to locate the antenna in the transport path adjacent to a first item being transported, along the first direction to maintain the antenna adjacent to said first item while an RFID tag of said first item is interrogated by the antenna and again along the second direction to withdraw the antenna from the transport path after interrogation of the RFID tag.

Abstract: An in-transit identification system for an overhead conveyor that transports items equipped with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags uses a guide track arrangement and an antenna frame movably connected thereto. An RFID antenna is mounted to the frame and a bidirectional translation mechanism moves the frame relative to the guide track arrangement along a first direction parallel to a transport path of the conveyor and a second direction perpendicular to the first direction. A controller controls the translation mechanism to move the frame along the second direction to locate the antenna in the transport path adjacent to a first item being transported, along the first direction to maintain the antenna adjacent to said first item while an RFID tag of said first item is interrogated by the antenna and again along the second direction to withdraw the antenna from the transport path after interrogation of the RFID tag.

Abstract: The method for monitoring an activity of a cognitively impaired user using a device having a body resting on a plurality of support areas and loadable by the cognitively impaired user, generally comprises the step of measuring a plurality of force values exerted by a weight of a load to corresponding ones of the support areas; the step of obtaining a state of an activity of the cognitively impaired user based on the measured values; and the step of generating a signal indicative of the state of the activity. The state of the activity typically can be a given step in a recipe to be cooked on a smart stove in order to assist a cognitively impaired person in the completion of a cooking activity.