US Patent Issued to Daifuku on June 30 for "Article transport facility" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,668,424, issued on June 30, was assigned to Daifuku Co. Ltd. (Osaka, Japan).

"Article transport facility" was invented by Yutaka Hasegawa (Hinocho, Japan), Tetsuya Kuroki (Hinocho, Japan), Naoki Douba (Hinocho, Japan) and Makoto Ueda (Hinocho, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An article transport facility includes a transport vehicle configured to travel on a travel surface on each of a plurality of travel floors. The transport vehicle is configured to travel straight and to change directions by executing turning movement to turning about an axis in the up-down direction on a spot. Columns extend through the travel floors in the up-d...