Dual-Arm Manipulation of a T-Shirt from a Hanger for Feeding a Hem Sewing Machine

Filipe Almeida, Gonçalo Leão, Gonçalo Leão, Carlos M. Costa, Carlos M. Costa, Cláudia D. Rocha, Armando Sousa, Armando Sousa, Lara Gomes da Silva, Luís F. Rocha, Germano Veiga

2025

Abstract

The textile industry is experiencing rapid advancement, reflected in the adoption of innovative and efficient manufacturing techniques. The automation of clothing sewing systems has the potential to reduce the allocation of repetitive tasks to operators, freeing them for more value-added operations. There are several machines on the market that automatically sew the bottom hem of T-shirts, a key component of the garment that fulfills both functional and aesthetic purposes. However, most of them require the fabric to be positioned manually by an operator. To address this issue, this work presents a solution to automate the process of feeding a T-shirt into a SiRUBA sewing machine using a YuMi dual-arm robot. In this scenario, the T-shirt arrives at the workstation with the main front and back pieces of cloth sewn together, seams facing out, and with no sleeves yet. This setup starts by turning the garment inside out with the aid of an automated hanger, ensuring that the seams are facing inward (as the machine requires), and then using the dual-arm robot to feed the garment into the sewing machine. With our approach, the feeding and hemming process took less than 35 seconds, with a feeding success rate of 98%. Therefore, this work can serve as a steppingstone towards more efficient automated sewing systems within the garment production industry.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Almeida F., Leão G., Costa C., Rocha C., Sousa A., Gomes da Silva L., Rocha L. and Veiga G. (2025). Dual-Arm Manipulation of a T-Shirt from a Hanger for Feeding a Hem Sewing Machine. In Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics - Volume 1: ICINCO; ISBN 978-989-758-770-2, SciTePress, pages 93-104. DOI: 10.5220/0013718300003982

in Bibtex Style

@conference{icinco25,
author={Filipe Almeida and Gonçalo Leão and Carlos Costa and Cláudia Rocha and Armando Sousa and Lara Gomes da Silva and Luís Rocha and Germano Veiga},
title={Dual-Arm Manipulation of a T-Shirt from a Hanger for Feeding a Hem Sewing Machine},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics - Volume 1: ICINCO},
year={2025},
pages={93-104},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013718300003982},
isbn={978-989-758-770-2},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics - Volume 1: ICINCO
TI - Dual-Arm Manipulation of a T-Shirt from a Hanger for Feeding a Hem Sewing Machine
SN - 978-989-758-770-2
AU - Almeida F.
AU - Leão G.
AU - Costa C.
AU - Rocha C.
AU - Sousa A.
AU - Gomes da Silva L.
AU - Rocha L.
AU - Veiga G.
PY - 2025
SP - 93
EP - 104
DO - 10.5220/0013718300003982
PB - SciTePress