The textile industry is undergoing a technological transformation that involves constantly accelerating production processes, reducing waste materials, and ensuring high quality products. However, nowadays, only a few of the textile samples made by companies are inspected through automatic monitoring operations or by highly trained and specialized personnel capable of identifying defects and anomalies.
To improve processes that ensure product quality, the TEXPROMOSY (TEXtile PROduction MOnitor SYstem) project thus focused on the development of a monitoring system capable of detecting factory defects through optical acquisition supported by artificial intelligence algorithms and monitoring moisture during the finishing stage using a microwave system.
“This was a highly interdisciplinary project, in which the close collaboration between electronics engineers, computer scientists, mechatronics engineers and industry experts was essential to achieve the results,” said Eng. Samuel Poretti, ISEA's RF Electronics, Telecommunications, High Frequency and Imaging Systems Area Manager and project leader. “The integration of monitoring systems into production and finishing machines required facing many challenges, such as the presence of strong vibrations and special measurement conditions, which demanded specific development arrangements.”
As a result of the project, which was funded by the Swiss Innovation Agency (Innosuisse), a system was developed that can be installed both on customers' existing textile production and finishing machines and on new machines, giving Santex Rimar an important competitive advantage in terms of quality and efficiency.
“This project lays the groundwork for achieving greater control of textile processes, which will increasingly rely on algorithms and software to ensure higher standards of quality, efficiency and productivity. These ambitious goals also bring attention to the issue of sustainability, which is improved by optimizing the materials and resources to be used. Collaboration with various academic figures has therefore allowed us to draw on new expertise, with the aim of supporting our technological innovations,” concluded the project's industrial partner, Santex.