A preliminary study of a cloth guiding mechanism for automatic sewing system

Purpose – In the trend from mass production to mass customization, more flexible production systems are required. In the clothing field, many studies about automatization of sewing processes have been done into producing small amounts of various kinds of products. The purpose of this paper is to propose a versatile guiding mechanism of a cloth for an automatic sewing system.Design/methodology/approach – Real sewing processes were referenced for the mechanism, and curved stitch is formed holding a point on a cloth. This mechanism consists of a solenoid for holding a cloth and a roller to prevent deformation of the cloth. When a cloth is sewn with the mechanism, the trajectory of the stitch is unstable because of anisotropy of a cloth. A precise trajectory was obtained by adding a device to control the pressure of the roller for holding a cloth and keeping a tension properly applied to a cloth.Findings – It was found out that shearing property is the most related to the stability of sewing trajectory. If th...