| DARPA has awarded $1.25 million to fully automate the sewing process. SoftWear Automation Inc., has so far developed “a conceptual” version of the automated system. According to its website, it is a robotic system that relies on an extremely precise monitoring of a given fabric’s “thread count” to move it through a sewing machine in the proper direction and at the right pace. |
he label "Made In China" may vanish from clothing if a Georgia Tech spinoff company is able to execute its vision. SoftWear Automation has just been awarded $1.2 million in funding to develop a sewing robot.
Computer-controlled sewing machines must precisely move fabric under the needle "stitch by stitch" and carefully track passing threads — a job normally done with human hands and eyesight. Success could lead to automated U.S. factories that "produce garments with zero direct labor," according to the contract issued by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) last week.
The idea of making garment cutting and sewing a profitable U.S. business came from Steve Dickerson, of SoftWear Automation.
Dickerson realized the possibility for robotic sewing machines after observing that sewn items had disappeared almost entirely from his hometown of Commerce, Ga., and most of the United States. The U.S. currently imports about $100 billion worth of clothes and sewn items each year — much of it from countries such as China, Bangladesh or Vietnam.
"The [robotic] technology proposed appears to allow cutting and sewing at costs LESS THAN in China," according to Softwear Automation's website. "There is only one basic innovation required; that the metric of motion should not be meters or inches but rather thread count in the fill and warp directions."
Success could spell out huge disruptions for workers as robots continue taking over human jobs in manufacturing and other industries. Low-paid workers in developing countries stand to lose out the most in this case, but U.S. workers won't gain much, either. Still, U.S. businesses could once again regain a foothold in the garment industry and win back a share of international trade.
The robotic revolution won't stop there. Dickerson has also suggested robots could return manufacturing of smartphones, computers and TVs to U.S. shores. A robotic uprising there could turn up the heat for companies such as Foxconn that manufacture Apple's iPhones and iPads.
SOURCE Innovation News Daily
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Soon people will be redundant. The poor will die off once they won't be able to provide for themselves with low paying jobs and the rich will just enjoy a life of leisure of the money they have already amassed. Robotics may be the future but so far innovation hasn't seemed to make life better for most of the world. We just have a lot of gadgets is all.
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