Drawer Access Monitoring via Optical Light Barriers
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing equipment storage devices lack precise monitoring of access to specific storage areas within drawers, leading to potential theft and inventory management issues, especially in industrial settings where valuable and heavy items are stored.
Innovation Solution
The integration of a sensor device with contactless optical sensors, such as light barriers, into the drawer frame to monitor access openings, providing real-time information on the presence and location of objects within the drawer, which is transmitted to a control device for accurate inventory management and access authorization.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If access monitoring is implemented in previously known equipment storage devices, then access control and inventory management are improved, but the system cannot identify which specific part of the storage area is accessed
Solution Approach 1:
The storage area of the drawer is divided into multiple partial storage areas using subdivision means. Each partial storage area is independently monitored by sensor means, allowing the system to identify which specific compartment is accessed. This segmentation enables precise tracking of access locations without requiring a single complex monitoring system for the entire drawer.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces mechanical or manual inventory checking methods with optical sensor means that detect objects in the partial storage areas contactlessly. This substitution provides automatic, precise monitoring of which specific compartments are accessed, eliminating the need for manual tracking while maintaining system simplicity.
2Reliability
If sensor means are continuously exposed to monitor access openings, then real-time monitoring capability is improved, but sensors are vulnerable to environmental contamination
Solution Approach 1:
The sensor means are integrated into the drawer structure and only become exposed when the drawer is pulled out to an access position. When the drawer is pushed back, the sensors are protected from environmental contamination. This dynamic exposure arrangement allows real-time monitoring capability while minimizing sensor vulnerability to harmful environmental factors.
Solution Approach 2:
The sensor means are positioned and protected within the drawer structure before the drawer is accessed. The drawer design inherently protects the sensors during storage, and only exposes them when needed for monitoring access. This preliminary protective arrangement ensures sensor reliability while maintaining monitoring capability.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enhances access monitoring and inventory tracking, reducing theft and ensuring precise knowledge of stored items, while protecting sensors from environmental contamination by only exposing them when in use, thus increasing the reliability of the storage system.
Implementation Method 1
sensor means which monitor an access opening of the drawer in a contactless manner for the presence of an object in a plane of the access opening of the drawer
Data Source
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AI summary
In order to enable, in the case of a storage device for operating equipment, such as a drawer cabinet or a storage lift, which has a frame or body equipped with at least one drawer mounted on the frame or body in such a way that its position relative to the frame or body can be changed so that it can be moved from a position protected from access to an accessible position and vice versa, wherein the walls of the drawer enclose a storage area of the drawer, the storage area of the drawer is divided into several separate sub-storage areas using partitions, the size, geometric shape and position of the sub-storage areas in the drawer are stored electronically in a control system of the storage device, and to allow as unimpeded, quick and easy access to stored goods as possible despite an intervention monitoring device,A sensor device is proposed for each drawer, which is equipped with sensor means that monitor an access opening of the drawer without contact for the presence of an object, such as stored goods or a user's hand, in a plane of the access opening of the drawer, wherein the sensor means are operatively connected to a control device of the operational storage equipment for data transmission, and information about the size, geometric shape and position of the partial storage areas in the drawer is stored electronically in the control device of the operational storage equipment.