Why robots can't make your clothes or the problems of robotics in garment production

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Machines can cut materials and fold clothes. However, they can't sew as smoothly and quickly as humans. To fix this, some companies are training robots to make a specific piece of clothing or even changing the structure of the fabric. Here's how U.S. clothing manufacturers are trying to automate the industry.



How robots make T-shirts
Softwear Automation is a robotics company that makes T-shirts. “We want to make 1 billion T-shirts a year in the United States,” says Softwear CEO Palaniswami Rajan.

The company was founded in 2012 with support from the Georgia Tech Advanced Technology Development Center and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Two years after its launch, it developed and launched its first prototype.

By 2017, SoftWear had begun building a production line capable colombia number data of mass-producing T-shirts. That same year, the company struck a deal with a Chinese clothing manufacturer to open a large factory in Arkansas. The deal fell through, and now SoftWear wants to start its own garment factories.

It is not surprising that the company has come such a long way. The machines are successfully used in many stages of clothing production - from printing on fabric and cutting the material to assembling and packaging the finished garment.

However, sewing is difficult to automate because the fabric is constantly being crumpled and stretched. Human hands are excellent at this job, while robots lack the dexterity.

SoftWear systems have managed to eliminate this problem. However, Professor of Fashion and Apparel at the University of Delaware She Lu warns that their production in the US will be more expensive than in China and Guatemala, where employees earn many times less.

SoftWear calls its robotic systems Sewbots. They are production lines that combine sewing machines with sophisticated sensors. The company doesn't reveal the details of how they work, only the following is known.

The fabric is cut into the parts from which the T-shirt will be sewn - the sleeves, as well as the front and back sides.
These parts are transferred to a line where, instead of a human, a complex vacuum system works to stretch and move the material.
Cameras monitor workflows at every stage so the system can make improvements as the garment is made.
Cotton, fabric and dye batches can vary, making the system difficult to operate. Each change requires adjustments, so SoftWear needs to adapt the machines.