OPERATION DIAGNOSIS AND REAL-TIME CONTROL OF INDUSTRIAL HIGH-SPEED SEWING MACHINES

摘要

Industrial sewing machines have been greatly improved over the last century in their mechanical construction and auxiliary devices. Most manufacturers can support a large field of applications, with machines that can perform operations with high quality at very high speeds. However, garment construction is a complex process due to the properties of the textile materials, and still relies on human operators in most of the material handling and sewing monitoring. Another important aspect is the set-up of the machines, a time-consuming procedure that requires experienced technicians and is mainly based on empirical knowledge. The increasing variety of materials and decreasing order sizes have been boosting the economical significance of machine set-up not only regarding set-up time, but also quality parameters. This paper presents the development of monitoring and control techniques that assure on-line detection of defects and self-tuning of some of the process variables. A sensor-based data acquisition and analysis system has been developed that enables a quick offline evaluation of the performance of the machine in several of its subsystems. Knowledge gained from these measurements can support process planning and are also being applied to the development of real-time control devices.