Artificial intelligence and robotics are driving the transformation of the textile industry as demonstrated during a special session on advanced manufacturing in this field. The event addressed new use cases of new technologies to enhance efficiency in the industry’s production system along with the changes being rolled out in aspects such as quality control.
Organised by ACCIÓ, the Agency for Business Competitiveness in the Ministry of Business and Labour, and the Eurecat technology centre as part of the Digital Innovation Hub of Catalonia (DIH4CAT), the conference underscored the transformational potential of frontier digital technologies and robotics applied to manufacturing processes in the textile industry and the trends which are setting the pace in this field.
Entitled “Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics Days: innovating in advanced manufacturing and robotics in the textile sector”, the conference, held at Eurecat Canet, kicked off with a talk by Miquel Soler, director of Barcelona Provincial Council’s Textile Research and Technology Transfer Centre, followed by Xavier Plantà, director of Eurecat’s Industrial Area, who shared his views on robotics and process automation in the textile industry.
The textile industry “is a genuine paradigm packed with opportunities and challenges to be tackled which has a long way to go in sustainability, process improvement and productivity,” said Xavier Plantà. These are areas in which “Eurecat has extensive knowledge of both the textile industry and new technologies which makes it the best possible partner for businesses when it comes to innovating.”
David Marco, senior consultant for Industry 4.0 at ACCIÓ, spoke about support mechanisms for the digital transformation of businesses and presented the Digital Innovation Hub of Catalonia (DIH4CAT), the hub for the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Enric Martí, director and co-founder of Aracne, then talked about the innovation that this spinoff set up by Eurecat and CANMARTEX has brought to the market by tapping computer vision to control needles and platens for zero-defect manufacturing.
The system, which has led to the establishment of Aracne Textile Solutions, predicts whether the fabrics to be produced by circular knitting machines may be defective which in turn makes it possible to cut production defects by more than 50 percent, thus optimising the use of materials and preventing waste. It also monitors the drop of fabric when it is being manufactured to spot defects emerging at that time due to various reasons such as yarn or mechanical problems or holes in the fabric.
Next, Eurecat Robotics and Automation Unit researcher Lucía Pérez presented the MODAVIA solution for quality control in the cutting of ready-to-wear garments using artificial intelligence for image processing.
The conference also featured the presentation of the Reimagine Textile programme, which is designed to drive entrepreneurship for digitalisation in the textile industry, along with a number of prototypes and demonstrators which address challenges in the textile sector such as quality control of fabrics in production, inspection and quality control of ready-to-wear garments, functionalisation of textile structures and additive manufacturing of non-woven fabrics.
