A laundry feeding machine features a conveyor moving through a suction induction tunnel. Articles are held at their upper edges by an automatically releasing clamp to hang in front of the induction tunnel. Upon release of the clamp, a valving system is immediately actuated to apply suction to suck the article in to lie flat on the conveyor to be transported thereby. In one version of the invention, a nip roller based at the outlet of the system engages the leading edge of each article as it passes through, whereupon the valving system is actuated to suck the remainder of the article into a suction chamber having a smoothing blade at the entrance port thereof, so that as the article is drawn out of the suction chamber by the nip roller, a smoothing action occurs. A system of computer-controlled valve actuators responsive to properly laced photosensors governs all valving operations automatically. The system is adaptable by means of one or more movable partition blades to be reconfigurable to a parallel multi-path feeding system having independent valves and photosensors.
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