There are a wide variety of applications where articles need to be stored, where the articles can be protected and preserved, and at sometime later be easily, efficiently, accurately identified and/or possibly individually selected/retrieved/discharged for utilization. In many instances these articles have requirements for storage in order to ensure their protection from decay, contamination, or damage. These articles may have accompanying information that correlate them to information or data external to the storage device or apparatus in which they are stored. Whether these articles of storage are configured and controlled in sets, groups or families, it is often purposeful and useful to catalog and store them such that the accompanying information can be easily, efficiently and accurately linked to them individually or collectively.
A notable example of a type of these applications can be found in research and development. For instance, a sample may be taken from an article with the remainder being preserved, contained, or relegated to storage. This sample may be tested and information may be acquired from the sample. It is then necessary to be able to easily, efficiently and accurately link that information with the article to which it corresponds. One example of this type of tracking and storage used in research and development is plant research. Plant researchers often group material, for example seeds, into specific groups. In the case of seeds, samples of the seeds (e.g., a portion or chip from the seed or otherwise, seed chip) may be removed for testing, while the remaining, viable portion of the seed is placed into individual storage where it may be protected against degradation or harm to maintain its viability. Information learned from the seed samples or chips may indicate if the remaining, viable portion of a particular seed will have the desired qualities or genetics. The remaining, viable portion of each desired seed must then be accurately identified and recovered from storage in order to plant or make use of the seed.
A need has therefore been identified in the art for a more efficient way of storing, preserving, tracking, cataloging, identifying, selecting, retrieving, and recovering articles, such as seed.