Stitchbot: On-textile Design + Fabrication

2019 ITECH MASTER THESIS You-Wen Ji

Abstract Woven textiles are widely used in architecture, ranging from applications for pneumatic formworks and membrane structures, to interior detailing. Performative aspects of textiles include tensile strength, reusability, and variable aesthetic characteristics. However, the existing industrial 2D joining methods for textiles in architecture imply a linear design-to-production workflow. On the contrary, in the field of fashion design and tailoring, the joining and the design process happen manually and directly “on the body”, allowing for fast 3D iteration. This project is proposing to transfer the strategy of “on-body” 3D design with textiles to the architectural scale by using a mobile stitching robot and an augmented design tool. This system would enable designers to shape textiles in-situ, allowing for a simultaneous design and fabrication process.

Stitchbot

on-textile design plus fabrication

You-Wen Ji

Term / Year: Summer Term / 2019 Thesis Advisers: Maria Yablonina, Martin Alvarez First Supervisor: Prof. Menges Second Supervisor: Prof. Knippers Integrative Technologies and Architectural Design Research - Master Thesis Course Number: 89070 Examination Number: 809701 Examiner Number: 02442

ＡBSTRACT

Woven textiles are widely used in architecture, ranging from applications

for pneumatic formworks and membrane structures, to interior detailing.

Performative aspects of textiles include tensile strength, reusability, and variable

aesthetic characteristics. However, the existing industrial 2D joining methods for textiles in architecture imply a linear design-to-production workflow. On

the contrary, in the field of fashion design and tailoring, the joining and the design process happen manually and directly“on the body”, allowing for fast 3D iteration. This project is proposing to transfer the strategy of“on-body”3D

design with textiles to the architectural scale by using a mobile stitching robot and an augmented design tool. This system would enable designers to shape textiles in-situ, allowing for a simultaneous design and fabrication process.

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Contents Aim.................................................................................................. 5 Relevance........................................................................................ 7 Textiles in Architecture...................................................... 8 Robotic Fabrication and Textile Methods.......................... 9 Augmented Reality Design Environment.......................... 10 Scope.............................................................................................. 11 Context............................................................................................ 13 Woven Textile Design.......................................................... 14 Augmented Reality Design Tools....................................... 16 State of the art................................................................................ 17 Woven Textile Techniques................................................... 18 Mobile Robotic Fabrication................................................ 19 Woven Textile Techniques................................................... 20 Methods.......................................................................................... 21 Custom Mobile Stitch Robot.............................................. 22 Material.............................................................................. 24 Tailor + Stitch Method........................................................ 25 Developments................................................................................. 27 Textile Investigation............................................................ 29 Alignment and Climbing.................................................... 32 Weight distribution............................................................. 33 Tension Control.................................................................. 36 Software control protocol.................................................. 40 Interface............................................................................. 41 Design Workflow................................................................ 44 Demonstrator 01................................................................. 45 Demonstrator 02................................................................ 47 Demonstrator 02................................................................ 49 Discussion ..................................................................................... 51 Outlook............................................................................................ 52 Reference........................................................................................ 53 Acknowledgments.......................................................................... 55

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Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Aim

5

Aim

The presented thesis project is aiming to develop

an on-site design + fabrication process for soft textile architecture through mobile robotics and AR design tools.

The on-site design+fabrication process for textile architecture takes advantage

of traditional intuitive methods of working with textiles “on the body�.

Through the introduction of a robotic fabrication agent and an augmented design tool, these methods can be upscaled and applied to architectural tasks.

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Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Relevance

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Relevance Textiles in Architecture

a)

b)

Fig. 1. a) Interior of the finished structure of KnitCandela (photo credit: Philippe Block). b) Lucid by Iris van Herpen (image copyright: Iris van Herpen, Morgan Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Donovan, viewed October2019, < https://www.irisvanherpen.com/behind-thescenes/lucid >

Textiles in Architecture

Textile had been introduced in lightweight structures and formworks due to its flexibility and strength. Recent developments in digital fabrication and computation have provided designers with novel tools to create complex textile geometries like the project from KnitCandela developed at ETH Zurich by the Block Research Group (See Fig. 1a)(Popescu et al. 2019). Granted that these tools have opened up new design spaces, there are still severe limitations, especially when upscaling textile fabrication methods to architectural applications. Current developments in digital fabrication in textile architecture always require a linear design to production logic chain, where the design decisions have to be made prior to the fabrication process. Contrary to that, in fashion design we see a radically different approach: garments are being designed directly on the body. Tailors and fashion designers create bespoke garments on models, the process is analog and the artifact is customized (See Fig. 1b) (Ines Van Herpen 2015). The techniques for the on-object or on-site design plus fabrication workflow allow designers to intuitively manipulate the material and make the design decisions on the fly, depending on the perceived material behavior, environmental parameters, and other design drivers.

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Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Relevance Robotic Fabrication and Textile Methods

a)

b)

c)

d)

Fig. 2. a) Robot stiching component (image copyright:ICD/ITKE, University of Stuttgart). b) robotic felting (image copyright:Tsz Yan Ng, viewed October 2019, < https://www.tszyanng.com/robotic-needle-felting/ aveukxuu9yyinco1e5jgnup1rmhw74 >). c) robotic filament wind (image copyright:ICD/ITKE, University of Stuttgart). d) swarm robotic winding (image copyright:Kayser, et al.,2019 ).

Robotic Fabrication and Textile Methods

The growing availability of robotic fabrication tools have been influential in digital design at all scales. Developments in additive manufacturing and the use of soft materials have created new possibilities for design methods. For example, in shoe manufacturing, the tailored fiber-placement CNC machines have allowed to precisely stitch and lay down material for custom designs (Adidas 2016).

In architectural construction, industrial robotic filament winding strategies have enabled creating large scale structures (See Fig. 2a, 2c)(Solly, et al., 2018)(Bechert, et al., 2016) as well as appropriation of traditional techniques to autonomous fabrication (See Fig. 2b) (McGee W., et al 2018).Furthermore, task specific mobile robots have been developed for in-situ additive fabrication (Kayser, et al., 2019).

Textile stitching techniques have been adapted to joining wood at an architectural scale through the use of industrial robotics, stitching end effector and real-time sensing strategies (Alvarez et al 2018).

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The aforementioned body of interdisciplinary work in digital fabrication and textile techniques clearly outlines the beneficial pairing of robotics and textile for further exploration in the context of architecture.

Relevance Augmented Reality Design Environment

Fig. 3. The construction process of complex structures and buildings could be streamlined using AR. (image copyright:Fologram, viewed October 2019, < https://brickworksbuildingproducts.com.au/article/real-virtual-worldscollide/>).

Augmented Reality Design Environment

With the development of display technology, sensor technology, and computer graphics, Augmented Reality (AR) integrates the digital world graphics into real world environments, allowing to enhance the user understanding of 3D objects and their relationship to the environment.

Compared to Virtual Reality (VR) technology, AR enables feedback mechanisms in environment-aware and object detection processes (Ren, et al., 2016). Introducing the AR technologies into the construction and manufacturing design processes could improve the efficiency, consistency, and minimize human error (see Fig 3.), ultimately allowing for simultaneous design + fabrication. (Jahn et al 2019).

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Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Scope

11

Scope

Designer

guiding

collaboration intuition

data

Mobile Robot

control

Augmented Design Tool

The development of this thesis project covers three main areas of inquiry: a textile in-situ design strategy, a custom stitching robot for the on-textile joining method, and an AR design assistance system for real-time design and robot control.

Existing applications of textile materials in architecture use two fabrication techniques: knitting or segmentation of the geometry into a 2D cut-pattern. Knitting can enable a higher degree of shape customization due to its ability to be locally tailored, while segmentation and 2D joining allow to use materials with higher strength properties. Both of these fabrication methods rely on a linear design-to-production workflow and are not reversible. This research is focusing on the logic of the sewing sequence when performed in 3D by a mobile machine that locomotes along the material itself.

In order to design and fabricate simultaneously in-situ and on-textile like tailor would design directly on a model, the design assistant is needed in order to deal with the architectural scale of the proposed task. The required tool has to be able to control the custom robot, allow the user to sketch in 3D, and preview the design in the AR environment. To achieve this, this project uses smartphones and tablet computers for the cross-platform interface.

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Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Context

Context

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Context Woven Textile Design

1. Woven Textile design

Fig. 4. Hole by Nakamchi. (image copyright:Nakamchi Tomoko, (2005) Pattern Magic, p38).

Textile design as earlier mentioned has been used in lightweight structures like membranes or recently been used in concrete casting. Tensile membranes are most effectively functional in textile architecture, due to structural and stability reasons. In the garment design context, loose textile arrangements and draping is widely used.

In garment design, the process involves many iterations of 3D drafting. A tentative 2D surface design is then created from a corresponding manufacturing method. In fashion design, 3D shapes are achieved by arranging the gap, edge curvature, dart, overlapping and seams (see Fig. 4)(Nakamichi T. 2005). Even experienced tailors still go through many iterations where the designer conceptualizes 3D forms in sketches and the pattern maker drafts precise 2D outlines. These iterations require time and material intuition, and digital garment design tools are a new way of speeding up this process.

In recent research editing textiles in digital workflow (see Fig. 5)(Guan, et al., 2012)(Li, et al., 2018), the simulation of the garment could improve the process of design to production.

a)

b)

Fig. 5. a) Simulation of drape. (image copyright:Guan, et al., 2012). b) Folding simulation(image copyright:Li, et al., 2018).

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Context

Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

2. Mobile Robotics

a)

b)

In the past 5 years one can observe a shift from industrial robotics towards a more diverse catalogue of task-specific fabrication machines.

Mobile robotics have allowed to explore the possibility of robotic fabrication in-situ with a variety of new materials, independent from the conventional robotic limitations.

In the Minibuilders project by IAAC research group (Jokic et al. 2014), the robots climb on the material as they extrude it, creating a continuous, scalable fabrication method, contrary to the stationary in-factory fabrication system.In traditional robotic manufacturing, designers or human constructors are far off the fabrication process due to the control system and safety considerations. Through the development of mobile robotics, designers and constructors can be involved in the workflow directly. In filament construction, mobile robotics provide the capacity to create larger structures with less installation and preparation of site conditions.

(Yablonina, Menges, 2019) (Mirjan, et al., 2016).

c)

Fig. 6. a) Minibuilders (image copyright:Minibuilders, IAAC, viewed October 2019,< https://iaac.net/project/minibuilders/ >). b) MorFES (image copyright:Maria Yablonina). c) Quadrocopter weaving a bridge (image copyright: Mirjan, et al, viewed October 2019,< https://idsc.ethz.ch/research-dandrea/research-projects/aerial-construction.html >).

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Context Augmented Reality Design Tools

3. AR Design Tools

The AR/VR design tool enable a new way of design + experiencing the impact in the architectural and industrial design context [Hololens] [HTC Vive]. By shifting the computer screen to wearable and portable devices and, designers are simultaneously excecuting a precise drawing and experiencing its consequences in the digital/physical environment. In addition, the portable AR/VR tools provide designers to preview the outcomes of a manufacturing process in an on-site context (Jahn, et al., 2018).

Fig. 7.AR in manufacturing (image copyright: Jahn, Gwyllim & Newnham, Cameron & Berg, Nick & Beanland, Matthew.

(2019). Making in Mixed Reality).

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Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

State of the art

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State of the art Woven Textile Techniques

a)

1. Woven Textile Techniques

The woven textile techniques can be applied at a variety of scales from small toy production to fashion design and architectural fabrication. As mentioned in the Relevance chapter, one of the prominent methods of fabrication of volumes with textiles, is discretization of complex geometries into 2d cut patterns and then joining of the segments. Often this technique implies a large number of pieces and complex sewing patterns. The zippable research (SchĂźller, et al., 2018) introduces a computational and fabrication method to reduce a cut pattern for any geometry to a single piece. The project proposes a fabrication system where a continuous zipper is attached to the edge of a 2d element in such a way that the whole volume can be assembled from a single piece by a single zipping action in a spiral pattern. This technique is relevant in relationship to this thesis, as spiral spatial joining is one of the geometry forming methods explored in this work (see page 28).

b)

Fig. 8. a) workflow of zippable. b) fabrication process of gluing (image copyright: SchĂźller, Christian & Poranne, Roi & Sorkine-Hornung, Olga. (2018). Shape representation by zippables. ACM Transactions on Graphics. 37. 1-13.

10.1145/3197517.3201347.).

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Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

State of the art Mobile Robotic Fabrication

a)

2. Mobile Robotic Fabrication

b)

Nowaday the task-specific robots are introduced into a construction site, from assembling tasks to additive manufacturing.

These developments demonstrate that the fabrication tool with a mobile platform has the capacity to bring more flexibility to the design process, as well as a new approach to problem solving in fabrication and construction. The series of projects from Maria Yablonina explore the concept of deploying collaborative heterogeneous robot systems where machines are working together towards a common fabrication goal (Yablonina M., Menges, A. 2018).

c) Fig. 9. a) demonstrator of sheet climber (image copyright:Maria Yablonina). b) The catalogue of filament-specific mobile robotic species (image copyright:Maria Yablonina). c) passing bobbin(image copyright:Maria Yablonina).

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State of the art Woven Textile Techniques

a)

3. On-site Design + Fabrication Method

b)

The concept of in-situ fabrication methods is not novel and has been present in architecture discourse since the 1960s (Hans Holleinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; s,1969). With the newly available AR and technologies, the idea of in-situ fabrication and design as a single continuous process can be revisited at a new level of complexity.

The CROW research project (Kyjanek, et al., 2019) demonstrates the application of on-device design assistance tools into the fabrication processes. By distributing the tasks between human and robotic agents, the system allowed for the designer to focus on the design task while the robot was executing the repetitive fabrication routines.

c) Fig. 10. Crow project (image copyright: Kyjanek, Ondrej & Bahar, Bahar & Vasey, Lauren & Wannemacher, Benedikt & Menges, Achim. (2019). Implementation of an Augmented Reality AR Workflow for Human Robot Collaboration in Timber Prefabrication. 10.22260/ISARC2019/0164.)

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Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Methods

Methods

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Methods Custom Mobile Stitch Robot

Textile Design

Mobile Robotic

Design Assistant

Fig. 11.

1.Custom Mobile Stitch Robot

1.1. Hardware

The primary drawback of existing fabrication techniques with textiles is their limitation to 2D operation methods. Textile joining methods all rely on static machinery that requires flat processes. Some portable joining tools exist in the craft and small scale applications [Singer Stitch Sew Quick], however they are not applicable to the architectural scale. Generally, reliance on 2D processes means that even if the design was conceived and sketched in 3D with sewing pins, it then has to be flattened and sewn together. The curve edge of the joint is one of the key shape forming tools. The more complex the design, the more joint curvature is required, meaning the more craft and material intuition is necessary when finishing the piece.

In order to explore the proposed methodology of joining textiles in 3D without the need to flatten them, a mobile sewing robot was developed. The sewing method relies on the existing mechanical development in sewing machines. However, the two parts of the conventional sewing mechanism the needle

part and the bobbin part are separated into two separate devices. The two parts are then held together by magnets strategically installed on the body of the robot (see Fig. 11), allowing to install it onto a hanging piece of textile and perform simultaneous locomotion and sewing on the textile. The primary mechanical challenge is to make sure that the two parts are always aligned,even when locomoting on a slippery surface, which is enabled by the magnet placement and introducing of gearlike texture on the wheels.

The robots are supplied with power via a cable and are controlled wirelessly via WiFi signal..

Two sides of the robot use synchronous serial communication to synchronize the stitching movement. The WiFi control system could easily link robot to any device including a smartphone or a computer or an embedded local server which could augment multiple robots control logic for larger collaborative fabrication process.

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Methods Custom Mobile Stitch Robot

1. Custom mobile stitch robot

1.2. controls

The task of on-device design for an on-site operation has many features WiFi, screenbased HCI, AR interface, cloud or local data stored build-in and size of mobility. In this project, the development is mainly focusing on iOS devices. The interface of the design assistant has three main functions (see Fig. 12).

• a joystick interface for manual robot control for stitching and locomotion tasks.

• a library of stored, robot behaviors in the pre-set menu.

• AR interface for robot path correcting, • an augmented reality interface for sketching and providing optimization for 3d hand drawing.Path-planning and navigation for semi-autonomous robot control, and import AR model from other platforms into the context.

Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Textile Design

Mobile Robotic

Design Assistant

Fig. 11.

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Methods Material

2. Material

Textile Design

Mobile Robotic

Design Assistant

The main material system of this project is standard woven textiles.The textiles are formed to shape by users and permanently joined by custom stitch robots. The textile provides UV world coordination for custom stitch robots.As the robots stitch permanent joints by sewing textiles together, the robots extend their own locomotion surface and build augment their UV world.

The standart woven textile is widely accessible off-the-shelf at a low cost and provides a wide range of different material properties to choose from. The accessibility is the primary goal of fabrication on-site, without customizing the woven textile.This approach could reduce the whole pre-production process, time consumption, while preserving aesthetic variability.

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Methods Tailor + Stitch Method

3. Tailor + Stitch Method

Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

The traditional method of tailoring in garment design and form-finding processes in architecture manufacturing (see Fig. 12) are only suitable for mass production thanks to their linear workflow. This project aims to bring design and fabrication processes into one seamless continuous process for designing, testing, prototyping and making in the in-situ environment. (see Fig. 13)

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Methods

Fig. 12

Designer

Mobile Robot

AR Design Tool

Fig. 13.

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Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Developments

27

Developments

28

Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Developments Textile Investigation

standard spiral

curved spiral - edge folding

curved spiral - parrellel folding

Fig. 14.

29

Developments

loop

vertical

internal joining

Fig. 15.

30

Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Developments

31

Developments Alignment and Climbing

Alignment and climbing

Fig. 16.

As mentioned above, the robot is held on the textile by a pair of magnets and can locomote by pushing the textile through the robots body using the two-part strategy. It separating sewing machine needle and hook, Stitchbot achieves higher freedom than traditional sewing systems. However, the separation of the two parts of the sewing process implies the necessity for careful allignment and calibration of two parts in order for them to be able to act as a whole.The tolerance of needle to hook tip in a stationary sewing machine is usually under 0.6mm(see Fig. 16). In the developed robot, the allignment tolerance problem is resolved through thefemale-male wheel design(the final tolerance is approximately 1mm), and texture on wheels improving traction on thicker textiles (see Fig. 17.).

Fig. 17.

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Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Developments Weight distribution

Fig. 18. iteration from version to 1-5

a)

b)

c)

Fig. 19.

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Developments

active gear

flexible printed belt

wheel

Weight distribution

As the robot is required to move on hanging textiles, the robot weight becomes an important consideration for the project development.

According to the textile properties, the robot weight limitation was defined as max. 1kg.

Another important parameter is equal weight distribution between the two robot parts, in order to avoid skewing of the textile surface.

The input weight of all the necessary hardware on board is as follows: dynamixel ax-12A motor: 57.2g, rotary hook: 70.3, magnet 20kgpull: 48g, and needle + needle bar: 18g. Needle side includes 3 motors and needle, hook side includes rotary hook and a motor, therefore the deviation is 60 g without the printed body

cover frame

cylinder

passived gear

parts. The imbalance of weight increasing valley surface angle that affect robot climbing (see Fig. 19.b). In the final version of the robot the weight distribution is as follows: needle side is 488g and hook side is 472g, resulting in the deviation of 16g. In early designs, the magnet has been placed in the body center to reduce imbalance problem. In the further iterations, in order to improve the climbing ability, the design changed from one pair to two pairs of magnets. The magnets were moved from the body center to the tip. This change required to change the wheel design in order to counteract the new balancing problems (see Fig. 19.c).

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Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Developments

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Developments Tension Control

Fig. 20.

Tension control

Class 300 lockstitches (see Fig. 20) are often referred to as double lockstitch. This stitch type is formed by interlacing a needle thread supply with the bobbin thread supply underneath (Hayes, et al., 2013).

In the conventional sewing machine, the press foot prevents fabric been pulling up and keeps flatten while thread interlacing (see Fig. 21).

Fig. 21.

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Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Developments

37

Developments

Fig. 22.

The 301 lockstitch requires consistent tension on both sides of the sewing machine. The hook side is controlled by bobbin shell, and needle side is controlled by lever arm and needle bar position. The rotation angle of horizontal take-up lever arm is measured according to the distance from needle highest position to lowest position plus rotary hook diameter and its thickness (see Fig. 22). The mechanism is composed of linear motion and ratcheting mechanism, which provides different motion in needle moving down and up.In the design, control gear ratio is 1:45. For the lever arm traveling distance has to fit the design while needle is raised from the fabric to the highest position. in addition, the custom plugin grasshopper improves design efficiency [Gear].

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Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Developments

up moving down

moving up lift

hooking

lifting

pos hook to deadzone

pre hook down to pre hook

deadzone enter

passing deadzone

deadzone exit

Fig. 24.

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Developments Software control protocol

HTTP request GET, POST, PUT

SPI openCM9.04

JSON wemos d1 mini

Fig. 25.

Software control protocol

In the first control code, only control needle and hook motor velocity, the result is fast but less reliability due to the motor build-in chip delay and interruption from the control board, it cracks needle when travel delay 100ms.

Through receiving the motor moving state solves the problem. In contrast, it loss 50 to 75% speed of stitching (see Fig. 24.).

Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) is a synchronous serial data protocol used by microcontrollers for communicating with one or more peripheral devices quickly over short distances. It uses between for communication between WiFi board (ESP8266) to the motor controller (stm32f103). it prevents error on motor position data loss(see Fig. 25.).

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Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Developments Interface

Fig. 26.

Fig. 27.

41

Developments

Interface

Fig. 28.

The interfaces of the design tool build on the iOS device and construct by Swift language which supports all iOS AR devices. The application is offering designers quickly switch tasks between AR design, library and joystick controller for different in-situ strategy.

AR design tool is offering designer directly sketching in AR environment by touch screen or hand gesture without wearing any devices. The interface has basic functions like undo, redo, and color picker. The path optimization process takes the node data to simplify and rebuild a smooth curve in fewer control points. The joystick controller provides sliders for needle position, wheel velocity, and stitching button.

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Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Developments

Designer

Mobile Robot

43

AR Design Tool

Developments Design Workflow

Design Workflow

The robotic design+fabrication is offering the following workflow: site preparation, initial design space approximation and design refinement during fabrication.

Site preparation stage includes surveying the site, making decisions on raw material dimensions, making decisions on anchoring positioning and finally installing the textile in its initial position and inputting this information into the design tool. The following design stage offers two options: manual manipulation of textile by the designer and subsequent robotic sewing or using the design tool to sketch the design intention in the AR space and receive suggestions from the design assistant software. Once the temporary connection is placed by the designer, the robot can begin its sewing routine. Sewing and designing the next phase of the design process can be performed simultaneously by the robot and the designer within the same physical space, on the same design object.

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Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Developments Demonstrator 01

45

Developments

Demonstrator 01

Demonstrator 01 was a preliminary experimental setup for evaluating a vertical surface of curve seams and use preload velocity without control from the designer. For this demonstrator, the robot could stitch vertical, horizontal, and circular seams but it was not able to keep consistency of orientation and stitching radius. Semi-manual control from the designer in real time allowed to corect for the robot deviation as well as to make design decisions on the fly.

Fig. 29.

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Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Developments Demonstrator 02

Fig. 30. demonstrator of standard spiral (see page. 29.)

47

Developments

Fig. 31.

Demonstrator 02

The second demonstrator was an experimental setup for evaluating the spiral assembly logic of the final piece and prove the feasibility of sewing . For this experiment the robot was controlled manually by the designer. This experiment allowed to test the overall stitching method on a curved piece of textile positioned in 3D space. The robot was able to operate on a 3D spiral path of a diameter of 1 meter. It was concluded that the overlap distances for successful stitching have to be at least 12 cm or bigger in order to make sure that the robot is fully supported by the textile it is operating on. Furthermore, the optimal pin placement was concluded to be 15-20 cm in order to ensure minimum fabric distortion during stitching.

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Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Developments Demonstrator 02

49

Fig. 32. process of demonstrators 03 (see page. 29.)

Developments

Fig. 33. demonstrator of curved spiral (see page. 29.)

Demonstrator 03 +

The demonstrators 03 was a further exploration of spiral strategy by folding the edge in order to control the overall curvature of the resulting geometry. The primary goal of this demonstrator was to increase the layer of stitching from two layers to four layers.

The conclusion of this experiment was that a 4-layer stitching can be challenging to the robot due to the press foot detachment and thus is to be avoided in the future.

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Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

Discussion

Discussion

The presented experiments demonstrate the potential of applying mobile robotic fabrication agents in combination with an AR design system to achieve in-situ design+fabrication processes.

At the current stage of development, the AR design system was primarily used during the design sketch processes in-situ. Future development would allow to create libraries of design methods including the fabrication constraints, allowing to augment designerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s material intuition with the collected data from previous design and fabrication experiments. This would mean creating a truly collaborative designer-machine process, where the hardware is compensating for the designerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s physical limitations and the software provides necessary information for a more efficient design process.

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Outlook

Outlook

In the future the proposed design+fabrication system could be applied to workflows where multiple designers work simultaneously on one object, continuously exchanging data between the designers, the machines, and the digital design library. This collaborative workflow would allow to achieve design outcomes that were not fabricable before.

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Reference

Reference

Aim | Relevance | Scope | Content | State of the art | Methods | Developments | Discussion | Outlook | Acknowledgements & References

1. Popescu, M. and Rippmann, M. and Liew, A. and Van Mele, T. and Block, P. (2019). Concrete shell built using a cable-net and knitted formwork. Detail Structure, 1, pp.10-11.

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Acknowkedgements

Acknowledgments

Maria Yablonina for her patience and all help and support all along the way Martin Alvarez for conceptual development and help when he is traveling All ITECH class of 2019 specially Maria Wyller in the first semester of thesis

Ying-Shiuan Chen, Yen-Cheng Lu, Shu Chuan Yao my mom, my brother for daily support specially my brother take care our mom in this year and

Prof. Achim Menges Prof. Jan Knippers For the supervision of this work

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