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.