HIGH-SPEED CUTTING OF PATTERNED SHAPES FROM FABRICS

The machine concepts emerging for high speed cutting of patterned mate rials will have a fundamental effect on the way engineers approach fut ure machine design configurations. The positive marketing advantage of such machines will rely heavily on the use of advanced machine vision systems integrated with low force cutting agents such as lasers. The high speed cutting process for lace fabric is chosen as a specific exa mple of this research and illustrates the benefits of an integrated ap proach on the formulation and realisation of an advanced production ma chine concept. With this intelligent cutting concept flexible, variabl e geometry patterned materials can be cut at feed velocities in excess of 1 m/s with an accuracy of 0.3 mm.