Garment Handling and Corresponding Devices — Technology in Robotic Ironing

摘要

This paper introduces a piece of cross-disciplinary research where textile science and garment engineering are associated with the development of garment handling devices. The paper focuses on a domestic chore, reviews the process in domestic ironing and investigates the technology which is potentially useable for the automatic ironing where the most frequent task is to handle a piece of fabric and a pair of garment. This requires the study of garment handling and its corresponding devices for the task. In the paper, garment handling is categorised into several steps and common handling operations are highlighted. The analysis results in the categorisation of gripping and handling devices with potential applications to domestic automation. This leads to the study of garment folding and unfolding with relevant techniques and algorithms. The paper ends with some potential technology in multi-fingered robotic hands.