Robotic Sewing System for Fully Automated Fabric Picking, Stacking, Loading, Sewing, and Unloading
Published:
F. Tokuda1, 2, A. Seino1, 2, A. Kobayashi1, 2, K. Kosuge1, 2, 3
1. Centre for Transformative Garment Production, Unites 1215 to 1220, 12/F, Building 19W, SPX1, Hong Kong Schience Park, Pak Shek Kok, N. T., Hong Kong SAR
2. Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR
3. Director of the JC STEM Lab of Robotics forSoft Materials, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR
Published in 2025 IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation (ICMA), (2025)
DOI: 10.1109/ICMA65362.2025.11120842
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- Abstract
- Sewing is a labor-intensive process that still heavily relies on human operators in garment production. To reduce manual effort, semi-automatic sewing machines have been introduced, but they require dedicated fixtures that must be redesigned for each fabric shape, size, material, and seam line. This paper proposes a fully automated sewing system without the use of dedicated fixtures. The system performs fabric picking, stacking, loading, sewing, and unloading for relatively thin fabrics. The system consists of a dual-arm manipulator, rolling-up end-effectors, a sewing head of a pattern sewer, force sensors, and cameras. The system is designed so that all devices can be centrally controlled by a single PC. A control strategy is also presented, including image segmentation, pose estimation, and end-effector trajectory calculation for sewing along a predefined seam line. Experimental results demonstrate consistent and high-quality stitching along various predefined seam lines.