Development of Fabric Feed Mechanism Using Horizontal Articulated Dual Manipulator for Automated Sewing

Abstract

This study addresses the problem of automating the sewing process in the garment industry. While automatic feeding during sewing has been achieved, overlapping and feeding two a pair of cloths still require a human operator. The difficulty lies in manipulating a soft material. Instead of using a generic robot finger, we use a horizontal dual-arm manipulator with rollers as end effectors, which always hold down the cloth during manipulation. We validated our system through experiments with a prototype that can feed and sew a single piece of cloth in a single operation.