Abstract: Disclosed is a system for collecting, sorting, counting and consolidating an unorganized pool of solid or semi-solid articles such as pills for dispensation. Specifically, the articles are extracted from inside a bin using attraction points on a transport substrate and sorted into containers in finite quantities. The system consists of several components, preferably including a torque source, a counter and a vacuum source, which are uniquely integrated onto a single end-effector to reduce cost and redundancy by servicing several bins. Further, the system presents a method of attracting and carrying pills using negative vacuum pressure, gravity and centrifugal force. This centrifugal force holds articles to the local attraction points and is provided by the spinning of the transport substrate. Pills are collected from the bin or plenum at the local attraction points, counted, cleaved from the local attraction points and guided to a container or vial.

Abstract: A self-orienting device comprises: a housing; a sensor mounted to the housing that is sensitive to a signal field and configured to produce a signal responsive to the signal field; a translation-inducing unit associated with the housing; rotation-inducing unit attached to the housing, wherein the translation-inducing unit and the rotation-inducing unit are configured such that the housing travels along a helical trajectory having an axis and is free to rotate about the axis; and a controller operably associated with the sensor for controlling the output of at least one of the translation-inducing unit and the rotation-inducing unit, wherein the controller is configured such that it receives the signal from the sensor and, responsive to the signal, controls the output of at least one of the translation-inducing unit and said rotation-inducing unit. A device so configured can automatically orient to a signal.