Development of an interactive robotic mannequin for fashion industry

Abstract

This thesis describes the development of a robotic mannequin for fashion dressing. Mannequins are indispensable tools in fashion industry. They are used for apparel design, fitting, alteration, and size gradation. There are set-sized and mechanical adjustable mannequins on the market, however a number of set-sized ones are needed for one complete size range, which can be expensive, moreover, a place is needed to store the mannequins. The adjustable ones are complicated in structure yet clumsy to use and they can only change in limited parts. Thus, there is a need for a revolutionary robotic mannequin system to overcome these deficiencies, which is the main goal of this research project. The robotic mannequin system consists of three part, a personal computer (PC), control unit and robotic mannequin. A user-friendly graphical user-interface software was developed on Windows platform, so the user can control the robotic mannequin easily. The control unit received the control signal from the PC and drived the actuators in the robotic mannequin. The robotic mannequin has 20 degree of freedom which is able to cover the common size range used in the fashion industry. It can change its shape, size and dimension precisely and quickly. The accuracy achieves ±0.1 cm which is better than what the industry is accepting, i.e. ±0.5 cm. The maximum time for transformation is 8.1 s. The entire research process followed the stages of innovative product design, to develop an idea into a realistic and workable product. First stage was the understanding of opportunity and market need from the literature review. Second stage was defining the design specification according to the market requirements. For investigating the human body shape variation, a data base of 130 Chinese female profiles was built using a 3-D body scanner. Statistic analyses were performed to analyze the body variation quantitatively. For a more comprehensive understanding of regularities of the body variation, the anthropometric surveys of other population were also studied. Third stage was concept design. A virtual mannequin which is able to decrease/increase its body size for simulating the appearance and function of the real robotic mannequin was developed. The fourth stage was the "robotic mannequin system detailed design stage", which involved an in-depth discussion and design of the physical robotic mannequin based on the virtual parametric mannequin. Standardized design and modular design were adopted in the design of mechanism. Finite element analysis (FEA) was adopted to ensure the safety of the structure. The fifth stage was the manufacturing and integration, where the parts were produced and integrated into the system. The final stage was the system validation, where the performance of variation range and precision of the robotic mannequin were tested. The feedbacks from the professionals indicate that the robotic mannequin system is practical for the fashion industry, the dimensional variation range is sufficient, and the shape variation is realistic. The system can be used for garment design, quality control relating to garment fitting, garment factories, customized garment design. E-retailing and on-line purchase.