Parallel kinematic sewing unit

  Copyright: © IGMR   Copyright: © IGMR

Existing industrial robot sewing machines achieve stitch speeds of approximately 500 stitches per minute. The aim of this research project is to develop a machine that achieves at least twice the stitch speed with sufficient seam quality for economic reasons. This requires the development of a correspondingly fast sewing technique. At the same time, the process-related, vibration-inducing, highly dynamic loads during the sewing process must be compensated for.

 

In the present research project, a parallel kinematic sewing unit PARASEW 1000 is being developed, built and tested in cooperation with the Institute of Textile Technology at the RWTH Aachen University. This consists of a parallel robot, a compensation unit and a sewing head. The parallel robot is designed in such a way that the given working area is fulfilled. In addition, it should have a high stiffness so that the occurring dynamic loads do not negatively influence the movement accuracy and thus also the seam quality. The compensation unit is designed to synchronize the movement of the sewing head and the continuous robot motion. Furthermore, it is to realize the necessary mass force compensation. The modelling of the compensation mechanism, the parallel structure and the sewing head must be formulated in a general way, so that the transferability of the investigations to other sewing heads and the use of different compensation mechanisms are ensured. The sewing head is to be developed in such a way that seams are produced with the required quality and sewing speed. A monitoring system should be installed on the sewing head to ensure reliable seam quality. A suitable control concept for this purpose is to be determined and optimized by means of model simulation and accompanying sewing tests.

 

Acknowledgment

The Institute of Mechanism Theory, Dynamics of Machines and Robotics and the Institute of Textile Technology would like to thank the German Research Foundation (DFG) for the support of the research project "PARASEW1000" (Co 282/4-1; Gr 1311/5-1)