Laundering Tasks Performed by a Robot

Spreading Out and Sorting of the Clothes

Fumiaki OSAWA, Hiroaki SEKI and Yoshitsugu KAMIYA

The purpose of our study is to find a means of putting away clean laundry using a robot. This paper presents a method of

spreading out and sorting crumpled laundry by dual manipulators and image processing. Because the shape of cloth tends to

change in various ways depending on the situation, it is difficult for robot hands to spread out and sort laundry. For this

reason, we propose a method of grasping the lowest points of laundry and changing the grasping points several times for

spreading and sorting laundry. Laundry can be categorized to a small number of shapes, and this makes it easy for robot to

be recognized. Furthermore, recognition of the shapes of laundry during the spreading process allows more accurate sorting.

Using the manipulators and image processing eight kinds of laundry could be spread out and sorted successfully. The

effectiveness of the proposed method is shown through experimental results.

Key words: Laundry, Shapes of clothes, Spreading out, Sorting, Dual manipulators, Image processing

1.

1) 5)

(a)

(b) (c)

(d) (e)

(A)

(B) (C)

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7)(C) 2

(d) Store the clothes in a drawer

(a) Grasp a piece of clothes from

a pile of laundry and raise

(c) Place the clothes

on the table

(b) Spread outSort

(d) Fold

Fig.1 Laundering tasks performed by a robot

8)

2

2

16 1 13

2-40-20

2-40-20

1316 精密工学会誌 Vol.70,No.10,2004

2.

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(children’s shirts)

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Trousers

HandkerchiefUnder short pants

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Fig.2 Target clothes

Fig.3 Robot system for spreading and sorting

Fig.4 Planning for spreading and sorting performed by two manipulators

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Grasping

corner aCorner

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Corners in a

short-sleeved shirt

Fig.5 The number of shapes of laundry by grasping at two corners

(short-sleeved shirt, type )

Fig.6 Detecting the lowest corner for grasp by a robot hand

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1318 精密工学会誌 Vol.70,No.10,2004

1

3

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Type No.5

No.3 No.4

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Short sleeve shirt

(type )

Fig.7 The lowest points when a corner is grasped ( short-sleeved shirt , type )

Fig.8 State transition diagram of the shapes by proposed method

(short -sleeved shirt , type )

TowelBrassiere

Long sleeve shirt

Trousers HandkerchiefUnder short pants

No.1 No.2 No.3 No.4 No.5 No.6

No.7 No.8 No.9 No.10 No.11 No.12 No.13

Short-sleeved shirt ,type2Short-sleeved shirt ,type1

Fig.9 The final patterns of shapes when the items are spread out

Fig.10 Template images of the model patterns at each hanging width

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Fig.11 Standardization of hanging width for different sizes

Fig.12 Extraction of a target object

Fig.13 Experimental results of spreading out

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Fig.14 Corresponding value for each spread interval

(No.2,Short-sleeved shirt: type )

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Fig.15 Accumulated corresponding value

Table 1 Recognition rate

Clothes Recognition rate

Short sleeves shirt, type1 47/50

Short sleeves shirt, type2 50/50

Long sleeves shirt 50/50

Trousers 49/50

Under short pants 48/50

Brassiere 47/50

Towel (rectangle) 50/50

Handkerchief (square) 46/50

7.

(1) 2

(2)

(3) 2

(4) 2

1) Paul.M.Taylor, Sensory Robotics for the Handling of Limp Materials, Spring-

er-Verlag, (1990),141.

2) ,

, , 15, 2, (1997), 275.

3) , , , 16,2, (1998),

149.

4) E.Torgerson and F.W. Paul: Vision Guided Robotic Fabric Manipulation for

Apparel Manufacturing, Proc. 1987 IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automa-

tion, 2, (1987) 1196.

5) K. Paraschidis, et al.: A Robotic System for Handling Textile Materials, Proc.

1995 IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation. 3, (1995) 1769.

6) , , , 64, 620,

C(1998),240.

7) , , , 63, 607,

C(1997),333.

8) ,

, , 65, 636, C(1999), 228.

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