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Describes one of the most frequently occurring processes in automated garment manufacture – the picking and placing of fabric panels. This can be carried out using pinch grippers which comprise two pegs that are pushed down on to the top of the fabric. The pegs are then brought together so that the fabric buckles up and is secured between them. It is essential that this operation has very high reliability and repeatability as an error can result in distorted, badly placed or misaligned fabric panels, which would then lead to the production of a faulty garment. The important parameters are the frictional characteristics of the peg surface/supporting surfaces combined with the weight and bending stiffness of the fabric, the opening distance of the pegs and the downward pressure applied to them. Describes a model for these relationships and uses experimental data on frictional and bending properties to predict the gripping behaviour for a given gripper design and gripping strategy. The predictions are compared with experimental results.

Examines the tenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

Discusses the 6th ITCRR, its breadth of textile and clothing research activity, plus the encouragement given to workers in this field and its related areas. States that, within the newer research areas under the microscope of the community involved, technical textiles focuses on new, ‘smart’ garments and the initiatives in this field in both the UK and the international community at large. Covers this subject at length.

Examines the ninth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

Looks at the eighth published year of the ITCRR and the research, from far and near, involved in this. Muses on the fact that, though all the usual processes are to the fore, the downside part of the industry is garment making which is the least developed side. Posits that the manufacture of clothing needs to become more technologically advanced as does retailing. Closes by emphasising support for the community in all its efforts.

A swinging pendulum is arranged to impact and bounce from a fabric sample. The energy losses during impact compression are calculated from the changes in potential energy of the pendulum after allowing for other losses. It is found that the compression energy loss, calculated from the static characteristics, gives only a rough guide to the impact compression losses, so other factors must be considered. Further experimental work is proposed to determine more precisely the contribution of the fabric properties to these differences in the characteristics.

Stick‐slip is characterised by an intermittent movement when two materials are sliding across each other at very low speeds. This paper describes a new method of measuring stick‐slip on knitted and woven fabrics when sliding over non‐fibrous materials. The technique uses emitter‐receiver pairs arranged at regular intervals along the full length of the fabric panel, which each visualise the irregular movement of sticking and sliding. It is found that an extensible knitted fabric exhibits either shear or micro‐slip during the stick phase, before the actual gross slip movement.

Flexible materials are used extensively in a wide range of industrial applications including the manufacture and assembly of garment and footwear products, the packaging industry and aircraft manufacturing. These applications are often extremely labour intensive requiring fast and accurate manipulation of materials by skilled human operators. This has resulted in numerous international research and development efforts to automate certain handling and manipulation processes involving flexible materials. Much of the research has been inspired by real industrial problems, and thus has been mainly sponsored by industry. A variety of innovative techniques and methods have emerged either addressing specific industrial problems, or suggesting a number of generic solutions. This paper closely examines the international research effort of automatic manipulation of flexible materials through a classification of workpieces in terms of their broad geometric shape, industrial applications, and individual processes.

The purpose of this paper is to gain an in-depth understanding into the research progress, hot spots and future trends in smart gripping technology in the field of apparel smart manufacturing.

This work scrutinised the current research status of the five automatic grasping methods for garment fabrics including the pneumatic suction grasping, the electrostatic grasping, the intrusive grasping and the dexterous grasping. Specifically, the principles, characteristics, main devices and the impact on garment production were discussed.

In particular, soft finger of the dexterous grasping method has good flexibility and adaptability in the process of fabric grasping, which provides a new solution for garment production automation. Up to now, the reviewed method in general exhibit good grasping speed, high grasping stability and flat grasping process. However, in the face of complex fabric materials which are thin and flexible and do not return their original shapes when deformed in practical applications, the gripper for automatic fabric grasping need new technological breakthroughs in the positioning accuracy, grab efficiency and flexible grasping.

The outcomes offered an overview of the research status and future trends of the automatic grasping methods for garment fabrics in the field of apparel intelligent manufacturing. It could not only provide scholars with convenience in identifying research hot spots and building potential cooperation in the follow-up research but also assist beginners in searching core scholars and literature of great significance.

This paper presents an experimental study of the influence of variables such as strain rate, the number of fabric plies, the type of fabric, the kinds of fibre and the shape of indenter on the indentation of fabric under differently shaped pinch gripper.

This experimental study will be approached from three different angles. It will look into an indenter pressing a sample with a much larger size, which is important in practice in the world of grasping by a pinch gripper. It will research a flat indenter, but also an indenter with a curved surface and will investigate fabric compression particularly with regard to the differences between single‐layer and multi‐layer stacks.

The type of fabric architecture and the kind of fibre have been proven to be important for the indentation. Even more important is the indenter geometry. Evidence collected to date suggests that the grasping action is more sensitive to indenter geometry. This leads to three possible approaches: close regulation of the materials and processes, handling processes to change in the material properties, and thirdly, intelligent systems which can learn from and adapt to each situation.

This study suggests that a picking up operation should change in the material properties, that is, the operation should be controlled by using fabric characteristics as the control information in an intelligent environment.

Previous work on compression has been concentrated on an indenter with a size identical to a specimen, this study will look into an indenter pressing a sample with a much larger size. On compression, previous work has focused on single‐layer fabric compression by a flat indenter, but this research will not only research a flat indenter and single layers, but also an indenter with a curved surface, and multi‐layer stacks.