EP2470698B1 - Sewing installation - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a sewing unit.

Usually, the sewing of an upper part made of leather or fabric and an underlying sub-material part made of non-woven or foam is currently done to 100% manually, using industrial standard sewing machines are used.

For example, goes from the DD 112716 A5 an apparatus for producing stacks of hemmed pieces of fabric, in which individual pieces of food of predetermined lengths are conveyed longitudinally successively along a path. In addition to the web, an adjustment device is provided, which successively picks up manually inserted pieces of cloth and aligns each piece of fabric and places it on a piece of food. After forming a seam, which is folded around the associated piece of food by a folder, the seam is sewn with the aid of a conventional sewing machine.

WO-A-92/15212 discloses a sewing machine with two robots.

The object of the present invention is to provide an automatic sewing machine for the production of molded parts, with the help of the sewing of upper parts and lower material parts is substantially simplified.

This object is achieved by a sewing unit with a first robot which extracts a top material part from a first stacking device and a bottom material part from a second stacking station and transports the upper part and the lower material part to an insertion station and places them in a congruent superimposition and arranges them in a workpiece holder the upper material part and the lower material part hold together congruently, wherein the Nähguthalter holds the upper part and the Untermaterialteil so that they project outside a predetermined distance on an outer contour of the fabric holder, and with a second robot, which takes a Nähguthalter the feeder station and feeds a first sewing station, which has a first sewing machine, wherein the first sewing machine follows the outer contour of the workpiece holder and thereby the Upper part and the lower material part with a seam produced by him in the region of the protruding distance of the upper material part and the lower material part sewn together.

The main advantage of the automatic sewing unit according to the invention is that the sewing of upper parts and lower material parts can be done much cheaper, because the number of currently customary for this purpose handles when sewing is substantially reduced. The above-mentioned handles are reduced both in the provision of the upper and lower material parts for sewing as well as the subsequent sewing of congruent superposed upper and lower material parts.

Advantageously, market-relevant products for the automotive and aviation sector can be produced in high quality with the aid of the automatic sewing system according to the invention. This advantage of the present invention is particularly relevant because in the automotive and aerospace sectors, the shapes, sizes and material thicknesses of the moldings to be produced in each case for the interior fittings vary greatly, since the variety of variants and the individuality are constantly increasing.

Since in the automotive and aerospace industry the accuracy required by corresponding EU standards is specified by the respective customer, the requirement for a tailor-made work is given. Since a lot of manual handling is required in the usual sewing methods, the error rate in the production of moldings is relatively high. An advantage of the present automatic sewing unit is therefore that the accuracy required by the aforementioned EU standards in the automotive and aerospace industry is readily achievable by largely avoiding manual handling.

Another advantage of the present invention is that time can be saved by largely avoiding manual grips when sewing upper and lower material parts, which leads to considerable cost savings. This also plays a role in particular when changing from one molding model to another molding model.

In an advantageous embodiment of the invention, at least a third robot is provided particularly advantageous and efficient, the one of the insertion station Nähguthalter, removes and feeds a second sewing station, which has a second automatic sewing machine, the second sewing machine follows the outer contour of the fabric holder and thereby sewn together the upper part and the lower material part with a seam produced by him in the region of the protruding distance of the upper material part and the lower material part ,

The first robot is expediently moved by control signals generated by the computing and control unit from the first and second stacking station to the loading station and vice versa. Furthermore, the first robot is advantageously controlled by the control signals generated by a computing and control unit as a function of the signals of a first optoelectronic camera in order to congruently align the upper part and the lower material part in the insertion station.

The first sewing machine is particularly preferably controlled by the control and control unit in response to the signals of a second optoelectronic camera control signals to move it along the outer contour of the fabric holder. Accordingly, the second sewing machine is controlled by a computing and control unit in response to the signals of a third optoelectronic camera to move it along the outer contour of the fabric holder.

The second robot is moved by control signals generated by the computing and control unit from the loading station to the first sewing station and vice versa. Accordingly, the third robot is moved by control signals generated by the arithmetic and control unit from the loading station to the second sewing station and vice versa.

According to a particularly advantageous embodiment of the invention, the material holder comprises at least one upper part and a lower part, which are fixable to each other and between which the upper part and the lower material part can be arranged, wherein the upper part or the lower part has the outer contour. Alternatively, the fabric holder comprises at least one upper part and one lower part which can be fixed to one another and between which the upper part and the lower material part can be arranged, wherein the upper part and the lower part have the outer contour and wherein the outer contours are aligned congruently to each other, when the upper part on the lower part is fixed. It is particularly cost effective if the upper part and / or the lower part have the shape of a plate-shaped sheet-metal part. The upper part and the lower part can be fixed to one another magnetically or mechanically in a particularly simple and precise manner in order to fix the upper part and the lower part non-slip in the material holder. It is particularly advantageous if the upper part and / or the lower part are magnetically gripped by an electromagnetic gripper device of the second robot and / or the third robot. The second robot is expediently a six-axis movable robot. Likewise, the third robot is expediently a six-axis movable robot.

It is expediently provided a first conveying path for conveying a material holder with an upper part part sewn to a lower material part from the first sewing station to a collecting station. Accordingly, a second conveyor line for conveying a fabric holder with an upper part sewn to a lower material part from the second sewing station to the collecting station is provided. A particularly efficient operation of the present sewing unit is achieved when a third conveyor line is provided for returning the fabric holder after removing the sewn on the lower part of the upper part of the collecting station to the loading station. In this case, the first conveying path and the second conveying path may be opposite each other in relation to the third conveying path and its conveying direction. Likewise, the first sewing station and the second sewing station may face each other with respect to the third conveyor line and its conveying direction, and the second robot and the third robot may be opposite each other with respect to the third conveyor line and its conveying direction.

• Figur 1 ein Blockschaltbild der erfindungsgemäßen automatischen Nähanlagen; und
• Figur 2 eine bevorzugte Ausgestaltung eines Nähguthalters.

In the following the invention and its advantages in connection with the figures will be explained in more detail. Show it:

• FIG. 1 a block diagram of the automatic sewing machines according to the invention; and
• FIG. 2 a preferred embodiment of a fabric holder.

The following considerations led to the invention. Usually, for the production of moldings or reference parts, for. As of seat cover parts for motor vehicles, leather parts (as upper parts) by lamination with foam parts (as lower material parts) connected. However, since laminating temperatures of 90 ° C - 110 ° C or more must be achieved, it is easy to damage the leather, since this does not heat above about 70 ° C. may be. These damages manifest themselves, for example, in a "wrinkled" and unsightly appearance of the good side of the leather. To avoid such damage, therefore, the leather parts are usually sewn to the foam parts. When sewing around arranged on nonwoven or foam parts each leather parts extremely high costs, which may be up to about 30% of the manufacturing costs and are due to the large number of manual operations required. It is therefore an automatic sewing machine to be created in which this variety of manual handles are not required. In such an automatic sewing unit, it would be conceivable to hold the respective molded parts with the aid of stencil and workpiece holder plates. A problem of this solution, however, would be that even with minimal changes of the moldings in terms of their sizes and shapes, the production of new templates and fabric holders would be required. The cost of producing sewing material holders amounts to approximately EUR 500, - to EUR 7,000, - per piece. Since, as already mentioned, especially in the automotive and aerospace sector in the interior design, the shapes, sizes and material thicknesses of the individual samples or moldings vary greatly and increase the variety and the individuality continuously, the cost would be associated with the production of appropriate , said plates comprehensive sewing material holders is connected, very high. However, a substantial cost reduction can be achieved by automating the manufacturing process of the molded parts in such a way that the manual handles during sewing of the molded parts are considerably reduced. This partial reduction can be achieved by the use of robots and sewing machines, which guarantee both the feeding of the molded parts in the automatic sewing unit on the one hand, as well as the exact processing position of the molded parts to be sewn together. It is conceivable to control the said robots by special cameras. Furthermore, the manual handles can be further reduced in that also the sewing process to be performed is performed by automatic sewing machines, which are opto-electronically monitored and controlled by special cameras. For example, when using a sewing unit according to the invention, it could be achieved that only one operator continuously supplies the material parts to be sewn to one another via two feed stations arranged next to one another and that substantially all other method steps are carried out automatically. Furthermore, costs can be saved by making the material parts sewn holding the sewing material holder itself easier.

According to FIG. 1 The present automatic sewing unit 10 essentially comprises a first stacking station 1 to which upper material parts 7 are fed from a first supply station 5, a second stacking station 2 to which lower material parts 8 are fed from a second supply station 6, the upper material parts 7 of the first supply station 5 being located on the Path 3 and the lower material parts 8 of the second feed station 6 on the way 4 are each fed manually by an operator. The upper parts 7 are preferably parts made of leather or fabric. The lower material parts 8 are preferably parts made of foam or fleece. The upper parts 7 are fed to the first stacking station 1 on the path 33 and the lower material parts 8 of the second stacking station 2 on the path 34.

A first special robot designated 9 takes over alternately, i. Thus, alternately successively from the first stacking station 1, an upper part 7 (way 35) and from the second stacking station 2 a Untermaterialteil 8 (path 36) and transports them to an insertion station 11, wherein the first feed station 5 supplied upper parts 7 in the first stacking station 1 and the second feed station 6 supplied Untermaterialteile 8 are stacked in the stacking station 2 respectively. In this case, the first robot 9 is controlled in accordance with the coordinates of the stacking units 1 and 2 and the insertion station 11 stored in the arithmetic and control unit 32. The corresponding control signals are applied via line 42 to the first robot 9.

The first robot 9 grips the upper material part 7 and the lower material part 8 with a gripper device which particularly preferably uses a vacuum technique and sucks the material parts 7, 8 respectively without creases on a suction plate which has suction openings distributed over its surface and forms part of the gripper device.

The material parts 7, 8 grasped in a wrinkle-free manner are superposed by the first robot 9 in the insertion station 11, the first robot 9 being controlled with the aid of a first optoelectronic camera 15 for aligning and superimposing the material parts 7 and 8 transported to the insertion station 11 is arranged in the insertion station 11. The first camera 9 generates signals corresponding to the respective layers of the material parts 7 and 8 respectively and sends these signals via a line 37 to the computing and control unit 32. From these signals, the computing and control unit 32 generates control signals via the Line 42 to the first robot 9 are sent. This moves the material parts 7 and 8 such that they are exactly congruent to each other.

The material parts 7, 8 thereby in a fabric holder 27 according to FIG. 2 arranged that the first deposited in the insertion station 11 material part 7 is deposited on a plate-shaped lower part 28, which was previously stored manually in the loading station 11 preferably by an operator. In this case, the lower part 28 is preferably placed in the correct position with the aid of at least two holes 47 arranged in it, into which appropriate adjusting pins of the insertion station 11 are inserted.

After the congruent arrangement of the material parts 7 and 8 on the lower part 28, a plate-shaped upper part 29 is preferably also arranged manually on the lower part 28 facing away from the material part 8 preferably. The lower part 28 and the upper part 29 are parts of the already mentioned Nähguthalters 27th

The upper part 29 and the lower part 28 are made of metal and are firmly held together for further processing, so that the unit consisting of lower part 28, lower material part 8, upper part 7 and upper part 29 is firmly held together. Relative movements between said elements 7, 8, 28 and 29 are completely excluded. The outer contours of the lower part 28 and the upper part 29 are each exactly adapted to the outer contours of the lower material part 7 and the upper part 8, but so dimensioned that the upper part 7 and the lower material part 8 each a predetermined distance 30 on the lower part 28 and the upper part 29 after protrude outside.

Preferably, the upper part 29 and the lower part 28 each consist of easily manufactured sheet metal parts.

The insertion station 11 are associated with a second special robot 13 and a third special robot 14, which are each designed six-axis and have a preferably electromagnetic gripping system. Therefore, the upper part 29 and the lower part 28 and the interposed, congruent to each other arranged material parts 7, 8 are magnetically firmly held together to form a unit when gripping the Nähguthalters. The second robot 13 and the third robot 14 each accomplish the transport of the material holder 27 sequentially removed from the insertion station 11 to a first sewing station For this purpose, the arithmetic and control unit 32, on the basis of the coordinates of the insertion station 11 and the sewing stations 16 and 17, supplies the required control signals for the robots 13 and 14 via the lines 48 and 49, respectively.

In the first sewing stations 16 and in the second sewing station 17, a first sewing machine 45 and a second sewing machine 46 are arranged, to which a first special camera 18 and a second special camera 19 are assigned. These optoelectronic cameras 18 and 19 deliver signals corresponding to the layers of the material holders 27 via lines 40 and 41 to the computing and control unit 32 which sends control signals to the automatic sewing machines 45 and 46 via the lines 50 and 51, respectively. As a result, the sewing machines 45 and 46 are respectively moved or controlled in relation to the material holders 27 deposited in the sewing stations 16 and 17 by the robots 13 and 14, respectively, in such a way that the seams 31 (FIG. FIG. 2 ) are generated in the over the outer contours of the upper part 29 and the lower part 28 protruding areas of the upper part 7 and the lower material part 8, without requiring a special sewing program is required. In this case, a distance 44 between the seam 31 and the outer contours of the lower part 28 and the congruent thereto arranged upper part 29 is maintained. In this way, consisting of an upper part 7 and a lower material part 8 molded parts are generated.

After the sewing process has been carried out in the first sewing station 16 or in the second sewing station 17, the material parts 7, 8 sewn together are conveyed together with the workpiece holder 27 via a first conveyor line 20 and a second conveyor line 21 to a collecting station 22 and there for Further processing taken manually. The conveying paths 20, 21 are preferably in each case conveyor belt devices, the directions of movement of which are illustrated by the arrows 23 and 24, respectively.

Furthermore, a third conveying path 25 is provided, which is preferably likewise a conveyor belt device whose direction of movement is represented by the arrow 26. The third conveyor line 25 serves, after the sewing process and the manual removal of the upper part 7 and the sewn sub-material part 8 in the collecting station 22 from the workpiece holder 27 to transport this (or its upper part 29 and the lower part 28) back to the insertion station 11 so that he is available there again. The respectively From the material parts 7 and 8 existing moldings are supplied after removal from the collection station 22 further processing.

Preferably, the second robot 13 and the third robot 14, and the corresponding sewing stations 16 and 17 and the associated cameras 18 and 19 are each arranged on opposite sides of the conveyor line 25. This also applies to the conveyor lines 20 and 21. In this way, a particularly favorable construction of said sewing unit 10 is achieved. After sewing the material parts 7, 8 in a sewing station, for example, the first sewing station 16, during the return transport of the currently vacant workpiece holder 27 on the conveyor line 25 by the sewing station 17 a sewing operation can be performed and vice versa, so that the sewing unit is always busy.

It should be noted that in the manufacture of more complicated moldings which may include interposed intermediate material parts between the upper and lower material parts, further feeding and stacking stations may be provided, the first robot 9 then removing these intermediate material parts from the respective stacking stations and through the camera Controlled 15 preferably congruent deposits between the upper and lower material part in the insertion station 11.

Reference numerals:

1 stacking station 2 stacking station 3 path 4 path 5 feeding 6 feeding 7 Upper part 8th Under Materia part 9 robot 10 sewing 11 inserting station 13 robot 14 robot 15 camera 16 sewing station 17 sewing station 18 camera 19 camera 20 conveyor line 21 conveyor line 22 collection station 23 arrow 24 arrow 25 conveyor line 26 arrow 27 workpiece holder 28 lower part 29 top 30 route 31 seam 32 Computing and control unit 33 path 34 path 35 path 36 path 37 management 38 path 39 path 40 management 41 management 42 management 43 management 44 distance 45 automat 46 automat 47 hole 48 management 49 management 50 management 51 management

Claims (22)

1. Sewing installation comprising:

   a first robot (9), which takes an upper material part (7) from a first stacking device (1) and a lower material part (8) from a second stacking station (2) and transports the upper material part (7) and the lower material part (8) to an insertion station (11) and lays the upper material part and the lower material part on top of each other congruently in the insertion station and arranges the upper material part and the lower material part in a sewing material retainer (27), which holds together the upper material part (7) and the lower material part (8) congruently, wherein the sewing material retainer (27) holds the upper material part (7) and the lower material part (8) in such a way that the upper material part and the lower material part protrude beyond an outer contour of the sewing material retainer by a predetermined distance (30) on the outside, as well as

   a second robot (13), which takes a sewing material retainer (27) from the insertion station (11) and feeds the sewing material retainer to a first sewing station (16), which comprises a first sewing machine (45), wherein

   the first sewing machine (45) follows the outer contour of the sewing material retainer (27) and in the process sews the upper material part (7) and the lower material part (8) to each other by means of a seam (31) produced by the first sewing machine in the area of the protruding distance (30) of the upper material part (7) and of the lower material part (8).
2. Sewing Installation according to claim 1, characterized In that at least a third robot (14) is provided, which takes a sewing material retainer (27) from the insertion station (11) and feeds the sewing material retainer to a second sewing station (17), which comprises a second sewing machine (46), wherein the second sewing machine (46) follows the outer contour of the sewing material retainer (27) and in the process sews the upper material part (7) and the lower material part (8) to each other by means of a seam (31) produced by the second sewing machine in the area of the protruding distance (30) of the upper material part (7) and of the lower material part (8).
3. Sewing installation according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the first robot (9) is moved by control signals generated by the computing and control unit (32) from the first stacking station (1) to the insertion station (11) and vice versa.
4. Sewing installation according to one of claims 1 to 3, characterized In that the first robot (9) is controllable by the control signals generated by a computing and control unit (32) as a function of the signals of a first camera (9) in order to lay the upper material part (7) and the lower material part (8) on top of each other congruently in the insertion station (11).
5. Sewing installation according to one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that the first robot (9) is moved by control signals generated by the computing and control unit (32) from the second stacking station (2) to the insertion station (11) and vice versa.
6. Sewing installation according to one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that the first sewing machine (45) Is controllable by the control signals generated by a computing and control unit (32) as a function of the signals of a second camera (14) In order to move the first sewing machine along the outer contour of the sewing material retainer (27).
7. Sewing installation according to one of claims 2 to 6, characterized in that the second sewing machine (46) is controllable by the control signals generated by a computing and control unit (32) as a function of the signals of a third camera (19) in order to move the second sewing machine along the outer contour of the sewing material retainer (27).
8. Sewing installation according to one of claims 1 to 7, characterized in that the second robot (13) Is moved by control signals generated by the computing and control unit (32) from the insertion station (11) to the first sewing station (16) and vice versa.
9. Sewing installation according to one of claims 2 to 8, characterized in that the third robot (14) is moved by control signals generated by the computing and control unit (32) from the insertion station (11) to the second sewing station (17) and vice versa.
10. Sewing installation according to one of claims 1 to 9, characterized in that the sewing material retainer (27) comprises at least an upper section (29) and a bottom section (28), which can be fixed to each other and between which the upper material part (7) and the lower material part (8) can be arranged, wherein the upper section (29) or the bottom section (28) has the outer contour.
11. Sewing installation according to one of claims 1 to 9, characterized in that the sewing material retainer (27) comprises at least an upper section (29) and a bottom section (28), which can be fixed to each other and between which the upper material part (7) and the lower material part (8) can be arranged, wherein the upper section (29) and the bottom section (28) have the outer contour, and wherein the outer contours are congruently aligned with each other when the upper section (29) Is fixed to the bottom section (28).
12. Sewing installation according to claim 10 or 11, characterized in that the upper section (29) and/or the bottom section (28) have the shape of a plate-type sheet metal part.
13. Sewing installation according to one of claims 10 to 12, characterized In that the upper section (29) and the bottom section (28) can be fixed to each other magnetically or mechanically in order to fix the upper material part (7) and the lower material part (8) in the sewing material retainer in a such a way that the upper material part and the lower material part are prevented from slipping.
14. Sewing installation according to one of claims 10 to 13, characterized in that the upper section (29) and/or the bottom section (28) can be gripped magnetically by means of an electromagnetic gripping device of the second robot (13) and/or the third robot (14).
15. Sewing installation according to one of claims 1 to 14, characterized in that the second robot (13) is a robot movable in six axes.
16. Sewing installation according to one of claims 2 to 15, characterized in that the third robot (14) is a robot movable In six axes.
17. Sewing installation according to one of claims 1 to 16, characterized in that a first conveyor section (20) for conveying a sewing material retainer (27) with an upper material part (7) sewn on a lower material part (8) from the first sewing station (16) to a collecting station (22) Is provided.
18. Sewing installation according to one of claims 2 to 17, characterized in that a second conveyor section (21) for conveying a sewing material retainer (27) with an upper material part (7) sewn on a lower material part (8) from the second sewing station (17) to a collecting station (22) is provided.
19. Sewing installation according to claim 17 or 18, characterized in that a third conveyor section (25) for leading back a sewing material retainer (27) after removal of the upper material part (7) sewn on the lower material part (8) from the collecting station (22) to the insertion station (11) is provided.
20. Sewing installation according to claim 19, characterized in that the first conveyor section (20) and the second conveyor section (21) face each other in relation to the third conveyor section (25) and the latter's conveying direction.
21. Sewing installation according to claim 19 or 20, characterized in that the first sewing station (16) and the second sewing station (17) face each other in relation to the third conveyor section (25) and the latter's conveying direction.
22. Sewing installation according to one of claims 19 to 21, characterized in that the second robot (13) and the third robot (14) face each other in relation to the third conveyor section (25) and the latter's conveying direction.

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