Automation in material handling

Abstract Because of the high economic importance, the automated handling for the fulfillment of the growing demands on the textile industry is very important. Textiles as flexible materials have a multitude of special properties. These strongly deviate from the usual materials of mechanical engineering. Additionally there are large deviations and inhomogeneities between and within different materials. In particular for nongarment materials such as composite preforms there have been a strong automation approaches within the last decades. For process steps such as separation, handling, and forming different grippers have been developed and assembled to multifunctional end effectors. The main focus lays in the damage-free manipulation of the limb textiles. However, new promising transport technologies for light and nonrigid materials can close the gab of textile transport in garment manufacturing in the future. In addition, digital tracking with radio-frequency identification will improve the overall efficiency of material flow in production.