613. Caprocon – Cargo Weight and Volume Process Control

Paper

Abstract

Caprocon (Cargo Processing Control) is a system for quickly and accurately obtaining container weight, dimensions, volume and density data. All dimensions and weights are gathered and processed while the containers are in motion and conveyed through the material handling system.
The processing system retains in memory the maximum height, width and length dimensions of the container as it passes through the dimension sensing frame and arithmetically processes the dimensions to obtain the rectangular space the container occupies, generally called ‘Cubed Volume’.
The weight of the container is measured in motion on a load cell supported conveyor controlled so as to assure measurement of containers singly. Individual and total shipment weights are obtained in both the English and metric system. Volumes and weights are related by preselected factors which equate volume to weight on an ‘equivalent weight’ basis for further analysis and billing. Information for control-and identification of the containers processed by Caprocon is entered into the system through the input and data display console.
Since the applications derived from Caprocon are varied this paper will principally describe the means used to obtain dimension and weight data and the computational methods used to determine the volume and density information.