ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,312,169, issued on May 27, was assigned to Daifuku Co. Ltd. (Osaka, Japan).
"Plane storage facility" was invented by Jun Hamaguchi (Osaka, Japan), Suguru Nakamura (Osaka, Japan) and Toshiyuki Yokohara (Osaka, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A control apparatus receives designation of a target position (Pt) in a storage plane (F); and, in response to the target position (Pt) being designated, the control apparatus can execute a passage formation mode for forming a passage (R). In the passage formation mode, a passage area (AR) for ensuring a passage (R) is set, and all target articles (C) placed in the passage area (AR) are moved to ...