From ancient times until now, sewing clothes has always been done by humans. Perhaps you will be surprised at this. In the prevalence of automation today, the garment industry has always been artificially dominant. The reason is that most fabric materials are soft and flexible, which makes it impossible for robots to handle them precisely.
Last week when New York Fashion Week opened, a Seattle-based start-up, Sewbo, announced that it had developed the world’s first automated clothing system.
Jonathan Zornow, inventor of the garment system, said that due to the special nature of textile materials, automation has not been widely applied in this field. For some simple fabrics, such as seat covers on cars and airplanes, they can be automated on a large scale, but robots can't help with the many shapes that are stitched together.
So the most important part of the entire system is textile materials. From the dynamic map we can see that this material is more like a cardboard than a soft fabric. Sewbo has produced materials that can remain hard for a while, making it easier for industrial robots to make clothes.
During the garment manufacturing process, the fabric is subjected to a special hardening process, which is picked up and placed by the robot arm and given to the sewing machine. The clothes you just made do not seem to wear, but the robot arm puts it into the hot water and the fabric becomes soft.
A beige plain T-shirt was born.
Zornow said this hardening process has an effect on almost all fabrics. This includes cotton, polyester, denim, lace, and some furniture fabrics. However, this technology cannot produce effects on fabrics that cannot wet, such as leather and waterproof fabrics.
However, in this system, the robot arm was not developed by Sewbo itself. Instead, it used Universal Robots' UR5 small assembly robot. This 6-axis articulated robot is usually used to handle light tasks such as picking up a thing and placing it. In fact, any programmable arm can be applied to this garment system.
"If you need robots to make more complex shapes in 3D space, you may need to use all 6 axes, but much of the sewing work takes place in the 2D plane space, so the number of axes used will be less Zornow said.
Zornow said that this solution for automated garments is long overdue in the industry, and his system will trigger a revolution in the global garment industry.
First, for manufacturers, the entire system avoids many labor-related issues, and shortens the supply chain, reducing the complexity of the global supply network. In addition, digital manufacturing will also subvert the fashion industry. Designing garments later is not just the designer’s exclusive right, because once the system is able to operate on a large scale, customization will become extremely simple and inexpensive for everyone. It will also drive changes in the way ordinary consumers buy clothes.
There is already an army interested in producing uniforms with Sewbo. Zornow said that Sewbo’s main job in the future is to license the patents to the manufacturers.
Via Robotics & Automation News
Extended reading:
New in the Catering Industry: Silicon Valley company Zume lets robots participate in pizza production
Japanese Robot Receptionist: Qingxiu Ren speaks Chinese and will produce 1,000 units next year
we are ok to provide cable assembly design assistance, rapid in-house prototyping(CAD, SOLIDWORK), manufacturing engineering, tool making, also accept flexible Qty,even including working round-the-clock to meet tight turning-round time requirements.
Our wire harness products are customized for various industry, like automotive, elecrical, mechanical, etc.
<
| Electric harness |
| Date Cable For Communication |
| Radio Frequency Cable and Flat Cable |
| LCD Backlight Display Cable |
| Computer peripheral Cable |
| Stored-program control cable |
| Adapter For Outdoors BillBoard |
| WireHarness For Control System |
| Converter Cable For Tunnel Enery-saving Lamp |
| Wire Harness For ATM |
| Wire Harness For POS Machine |
| Wire Harness For Refilling tankers |
| Main Wiring Harness For Elevator Control |
| Power Cord For Circuit Box |
<
| Wireharness For Game machine |
| Converter Cable For Solar Energy |
Game machine wire assembly, wiring harness for game machine, electrical wiring harness, custom wire harness for game machine
ETOP WIREHARNESS LIMITED , http://www.oemmoldedcables.com