Laundry Feeding Using 3D Surface Profiling for Reliable Gripping
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for feeding laundry to a mangle or other laundry-treatment arrangements are inefficient due to the manual handling and difficulty in automatically gripping and orienting items, leading to costly personnel time and mechanical challenges.
Innovation Solution
A method and apparatus that use three-dimensional surface profiling and image analysis to determine the optimal gripping location on laundry items, allowing for automated gripping and orientation using clamps or suction devices, enabling reliable and efficient feeding of laundry to treatment arrangements.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If manual handling is used to place items of laundry on the feed conveyor, then the process is simple to implement, but it is costly in terms of time and personnel
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses image analysis to automatically identify and locate gripping points on laundry items without human intervention. The laundry items themselves provide the information needed (through their visual characteristics) for the system to determine how to handle them, making the process self-directed and eliminating manual positioning requirements
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces manual mechanical placement with an automated vision-based identification system combined with controlled gripping mechanisms. The image analysis system substitutes for human visual inspection and decision-making, while programmable grippers replace manual gripping actions
2Reliability
If automated gripping is attempted without surface profiling, then the system is simpler, but it cannot reliably locate and grip adjacent edges of the front edge
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an image analysis system as an intermediary between the laundry items and the gripping mechanism. This intermediary captures visual information, processes it to identify surface characteristics and gripping points, and translates this information into actionable positioning data for the grippers, enabling reliable automated gripping
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs surface profiling and gripping point identification before the actual gripping action occurs. By analyzing the laundry item's surface characteristics in advance and determining optimal gripping locations, the system prepares all necessary information beforehand, ensuring reliable and accurate gripping when the moment arrives
Data Source
AI summary
Items of laundry are fed from an input machine to a mangle or some other laundry-treatment arrangement. Operating personnel are employed to feed the input machine with the items of laundry. This is costly in terms of time and personnel. The invention makes provision for determining surface profiles of the items of laundry by means of imaging installations. From these surface profiles a location for the automatic gripping of the item of laundry or of a corner of same, and preferably also the position of the location or corner, is determined by electronic image processing, whereby the location or corner of the item of laundry can be securely gripped in an automatic and targeted manner. By virtue of the described measures, hitherto manual activities in front of the input machine can be easily performed in a reliable and fully-automatic mode.