UC Berkley engineers have developed ah artificial intelligence-powered laundry folding robot, but unfortunately, it’s still not as fast as humans. The system is called ‘SpeedFolding’, and this bimanual system consists of two robotic hands capable of smoothing and folding a crumpled garment. One caveat: it can only fold 30-40 garments per hour.
On the bright side, it can fold clothing items in less than 2-minutes with 93% accuracy. This means an army of these laundry folding robots may actually come in handy at places like hotels, that is until…they require maintenance. SpeedFolding is trained using a neural network called BiManual Manipulation Network that studies 4,300 human and machine-assisted actions in order to learn how to smooth and fold garments from a random configuration. FoldiMate attempted to create a laundry folding robot back in 2019, which didn’t quite catch on.
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- Hydraulic pistons enable the mechanical fingers to open and close and grip objects with enough force to lift them. Every finger joint can be adjusted...
Garment handling such as folding and packing are common tasks in textile manufacturing and logistics, industrial and household laundry, healthcare, and hospitality, where speed and efficiency are key factors,” said the researchers.
