A geometric approach to robotic unfolding of garments

This work presents a novel approach to autonomous unfolding of garments by means of a dual arm robotic manipulator. The proposed approach is based on the observation that a garment can be brought to an approximately planar configuration if it is held by two points on its outline. This step facilitates the detection of another set of points that when grasped the garment will naturally unfold. A robust method for successively detecting such boundary points on images of garments hanging from a single point was developed. The manipulated garment is then laid on a flat surface and matched to a set of foldable templates using shape analysis techniques. Using the established correspondences with the template's landmark points the garment is re-grasped by such two points that it will naturally unfold in a spread out configuration. The adopted framework has been experimentally evaluated using a dual industrial manipulator and a variety of garments. The produced results indicate the feasibility and robustness of the proposed approach.