Destacking of Fabric Parts Using Passive Actuator-Less Gripper (PALGRIP)
Date:
Workshop talk at IEEE ICMA 2025 Conference Workshop: Robotics for Automated Garment Production, Beijing, China
- Paper Abstract
- The automation of fabric destacking and pick-and-place operations is critical for textile manufacturing. Conventional grasping solutions, such as parallel, suction, or needle-based grippers, are fundamentally limited by their reliance on active actuation and external power sources. This paper presents the Passive Actuator-Less Gripper (PALGRIP), a novel, fully mechanical end-effector for fabric manipulation. PALGRIP utilizes a compliant internal mechanism that is triggered by the application of a simple compressive force, enabling it to grasp a single fabric ply without requiring any onboard power or tethered supplies. By virtue of its passive, power-free design, PALGRIP facilitates low-cost, simplified system integration, presenting a significant advancement in accessible automation for the textile industry.