Flexible handling robot system for cloth

Abstract

Flexible objects such as clothes are hard to be handled by robots. But the working conditions for laundry factories are severe because of dusts, heats and steams, and full automation systems which can handle clothes are highly required. To automate these factories, 3-D Vision systems and flexible handling mechanism are dispensable to handle flexible clothes. There are three steps to handle clothes by robots. They are ; (1) to pick up one cloth from piled clothes, (2) to grasp one corner of a cloth, (3) to grasp one edge of a cloth. In every step, proper combination of mechanisms and vision systems are required. Here, the vision systems and flexible cloth handling mechanisms to input washing clothes to the a pressing and folding line have been introduced.