A method and device for feeding laundry pieces to a laundry treatment installation. Laundry pieces are fed to ironers by infeed machines. In practice, a front transverse periphery of a laundry piece is folded back on itself. In order to prevent this, infeed machines have stretching installations that have belt conveyors that lie on top of one another, one of which is briefly decelerated so as to unravel a front transverse periphery of the laundry piece that is folded back on itself. This deceleration decreases the infeed performance. One belt conveyor of the present stretching installation is at least temporarily driven at a faster speed to unravel a transverse periphery of the laundry piece that has potentially folded back on itself before the laundry piece runs into the ironer, increasing the infeed performance as it is no longer necessary for either of the belt conveyors to be decelerated.

A method and device in which a respective laundry piece initially is automatically gripped at a location and pulled apart. The automatic gripping of laundry pieces for feeding to an infeed machine requires a plurality of handling procedures which for reliable automation have to be coordinated. The laundry piece is subsequently reoriented such that said laundry piece can be acquired in a manner which is favorable in terms of the subsequent steps, which can take place in front of a wall that stabilizes the laundry piece. Once the laundry piece has been gripped in the region of a periphery, the laundry piece, as a function of which periphery has been gripped and by way of which alignment the laundry piece is to be fed to the infeed machine, is pulled longitudinally or transversely onto a conveyor that transports said laundry piece to the infeed machine.

A method and device in which a respective laundry piece initially is automatically gripped at a location and pulled apart. The automatic gripping of laundry pieces for feeding to an infeed machine requires a plurality of handling procedures which for reliable automation have to be coordinated. The laundry piece is subsequently reoriented such that said laundry piece can be acquired in a manner which is favorable in terms of the subsequent steps, which can take place in front of a wall that stabilizes the laundry piece. Once the laundry piece has been gripped in the region of a periphery, the laundry piece, as a function of which periphery has been gripped and by way of which alignment the laundry piece is to be fed to the infeed machine, is pulled longitudinally or transversely onto a conveyor that transports said laundry piece to the infeed machine.

Used laundry items are delivered unsorted to laundries. It has previously been usual to initially sort the laundry items after delivery and treat the sorted laundry items, at least by washing, drying, mangling and folding. The preliminary sorting is labor-intensive and time-consuming. The invention proposes to treat unsorted at least those laundry items which must be mangled. Only before folding are the still unsorted laundry items identified and folded in targeted fashion accordingly. After folding, the identified laundry items are sorted according to their identified criteria, in that folded laundry items with the same criteria are stacked on a respective stack of similarly treated and folded laundry items. This reduces the complexity of sorting laundry items.

Laundry items are spread out and deposited on a feed conveyor which inserts the laundry item into a mangle. The front edge of the laundry item is stretched by a spreading device, wherein spreading clamps are moved apart on the basis of a measured length of the front edge. Until now, the front edge length item has been measured at the spreading device, which increases the duration of the spreading operation. The invention measures the front edge length upstream of the spreading device when the laundry item is still hanging in two loading clamps of a loading station. So that the front edge length can be contactlessly determined from the lowest point of the sag of the front edge, the distance between the loading clamps is a greater distance than previously. As a result, a V-like sag is formed, the lowest point of which can be contactlessly determined.

To provide a cloth spreading device capable of shortening the waiting time until inputting work of a worker and achieving high production efficiency. A cloth spreading device 1 includes: a plurality of input units 30; a plurality of relay units 40 provided corresponding to the input units 30; and an extension unit 50. Each of the input units 30 includes: an input chuck 31; and an up-down moving machine 32 that moves the input chuck 31 up and down. Each of the relay units 40 receives a cloth C from the input chuck 31 having moved up to a transfer position and transfers the received cloth C to the extension unit 50. The input chuck 31 having transferred the cloth C to the relay unit 40 moves down to an input position. Standby time of the input chuck 31 until the relay unit 40 becomes ready to receive the cloth C can be shortened so that the input chuck 31 can be moved down without delay to the input position.

To provide a cloth spreading device capable of shortening the waiting time until inputting work of a worker and achieving high production efficiency. A cloth spreading device 1 includes: a plurality of input units 30; a plurality of relay units 40 provided corresponding to the input units 30; and an extension unit 50. Each of the input units 30 includes: an input chuck 31; and an up-down moving machine 32 that moves the input chuck 31 up and down. Each of the relay units 40 receives a cloth C from the input chuck 31 having moved up to a transfer position and transfers the received cloth C to the extension unit 50. The input chuck 31 having transferred the cloth C to the relay unit 40 moves down to an input position. Standby time of the input chuck 31 until the relay unit 40 becomes ready to receive the cloth C can be shortened so that the input chuck 31 can be moved down without delay to the input position.

Devices, systems, and methods for repositioning a deformable laundry article are described. For example, a robotic device includes a conveyor configured to transfer the deformable laundry article outside of a work volume, two or more lifters including grippers individually anchored about the perimeter of the work volume, two or more sensors disposed at fixed locations about the work volume, and a memory storing data indicative of repositioned deformable laundry articles. A controller is in operative communication with the memory, the two or more sensors, and the two or more lifters. The controller is configured to receive a signal from the sensors, identify grip points on the deformable laundry article suspended above the conveyor, instruct a lifter to grip and lift an identified grip point to the suspension height, determine whether the deformable laundry article is repositioned, and instruct the lifters to lower the repositioned deformable laundry article onto the conveyor.

A cloth spreading apparatus is capable of eliminating the troublesome work of pulling a cloth when the cloth is held by feeding chucks to reduce burden of the worker and operation time. A cloth spreading apparatus includes a pair of feeding chucks grasping adjacent corners of a cloth, a moving device for moving the pair of feeding chucks between a feeding position and a delivery position of the cloth to draw the cloth, and spreading chucks for receiving the cloth directly or indirectly from the pair of feeding chucks and spreading the cloth in a direction of separating the adjacent corners from each other. The moving device has separate moving trajectories corresponding to the respective feeding chucks so that the pair of feeding chucks can move between the feeding position and the delivery position independently of each other.

A cloth spreading apparatus is capable of eliminating the troublesome work of pulling a cloth when the cloth is held by feeding chucks to reduce burden of the worker and operation time. A cloth spreading apparatus includes a pair of feeding chucks grasping adjacent corners of a cloth, a moving device for moving the pair of feeding chucks between a feeding position and a delivery position of the cloth to draw the cloth, and spreading chucks for receiving the cloth directly or indirectly from the pair of feeding chucks and spreading the cloth in a direction of separating the adjacent corners from each other. The moving device has separate moving trajectories corresponding to the respective feeding chucks so that the pair of feeding chucks can move between the feeding position and the delivery position independently of each other.