PRINCIPLES OF ELECTROADHESION IN CLOTHING ROBOTICS

With the growing need of automation for garment assembly in the clothing industry comes the requirement for a compete range of textile handling devices. Robotics offers the flexibility needed to compete in a market where change in style and fashion can be both rapid and unpredictable. The actual physical mechanisms involved in the use of electrostatic attraction of clothing fabrics as a robot gripping technique are discussed. Following an outline of the underlying principles, experimental results are presented for a range of materials tested using electroadhesive surfaces. A selection of robot gripper configurations are provided together with a discussion of their relative merits.