Taiwan's government-funded Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and Everest Textile, a local maker of functional fabrics, have jointly developed an automated multi-tasking system for garment production, able to cut manual operation by 70% through incorporating ITRI's 3D smart vision sensing technology.
ITRI said that the system can shorten the textile sample proofing time to 1-3 days from 7-10 days and enable Taiwan's textile and garment industry to adopt semi-automatic production.
ITRI said 3D smart vision sensing technology can recognize the color, shape, quality and location of any given object and can immediately scan stereo scenes and gestures of objects, suitable for application to metal processing, machining, and 3C inspection to help robotic arms move agilely without human assistance.
Meanwhile, ITRI's anti-reflective 3D vision guiding module can help determine fabric material feeding positions on different sizes of T-shirts and relay the positions to robotic arms, which will then execute materials loading and unloading at stitching and thermo-printing machines, thus integrating separate steps of processes into one-stop operation.
At the moment, up to 70% of functional fabrics come from Taiwan, and smart production integration solutions will enhance Taiwan textile and garment makers' production, according to ITRI.