FANUC HELPS BUILD INTELLIGENT ROBOTS FOR COMMERCIAL LAUNDRIES

In the industrial laundry sector, automation has made it possible to process up to 100 tons of textiles per day, almost entirely without human intervention. However, until recently, loading towels or bed sheets into laundry folding machines was still a genuinely manual task. This is where Sewts, a Munich-based start-up, comes in with its new robot system, VELUM, that can perform this task without causing creases.

The robot system processes an average of 500 to 600 textiles per hour, automating a task previously performed manually. Currently, the performance of the VELUM system is comparable to that of a human operator, but with continuous over-the-air software updates, the system's range of functions is continuously expanding, improving its efficiency.

The VELUM system's centrepiece is an intelligent software that can analyse deformable materials and predict their behaviour when gripped. When combined with a FANUC robot and a 3D camera system, the software can identify textures, seams, and corners of individual textiles, locate them in space, and create control commands, enabling the robot to grasp textiles at an ideal point in real time.

Sewts plans to increase the number and performance of VELUM systems gradually. The start-up is already working on the next innovations, robots with vision systems to process textile returns for large online retailers in the future.