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Robotic Platform for Automatic Alignment and Placement of Fabric Patterns for Smart Manufacturing in Garment Industry

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Abstract

We propose a robotic platform that autonomously manipulates templates that hold fabric patterns during a pattern-forming process without human intervention. The platform performs key functions for preprocessing of pattern-forming such as opening, closing, placing, and aligning templates made of large and flexible plastic sheets, and is designed to seamlessly connect and operate with a commercial pattern-forming machine. The main contribution of the proposed system is the design of the centering mechanism, which adaptively aligns templates with different sizes placed on the stage. In this paper, we first describe the design of the proposed device and analyze its vibration characteristics to optimize the input parameters of the main actuator. We then characterize the component of the centering mechanism and test the alignment function of the device. Finally, We demonstrate the performance of our device by integrating it with a commercial pattern-forming machine for an automated sewing process. The device shows an operation time of nine seconds shorter than the duration needed by a trained human worker for the same task in the field. We believe the proposed system will be the first step towards realizing a smart garment factory in the apparel industry.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Institute of Advanced Machines and Design, Institute of Engineering Research, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, South Korea

    Taehwan Kim & Yong-Lae Park

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  1. Taehwan Kim
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  2. Yong-Lae Park
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Correspondence to Yong-Lae Park.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Video 1: Demonstration of the alignment function of the proposed robotic platform for the centering mechanism.

Supplementary Video 2: Demonstration of automatic sewing of a commercial pattern former integrated with the proposed robotic.

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Kim, T., Park, YL. Robotic Platform for Automatic Alignment and Placement of Fabric Patterns for Smart Manufacturing in Garment Industry. Int. J. Precis. Eng. Manuf. 24, 1549–1561 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-023-00878-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-023-00878-5

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