Control of Surface Density of Textile Materials Using Automated Scanning System

Abstract

The paper demonstrates the importance of controlling the surface density of textiles, which include mainly fabrics, knitted fabrics and nonwoven fabrics, in order to improve the quality of their manufacture.
 It considers the most accurate methods of controlling surface density by determining the mass to area ratio of the textile sample. And it is also shown that, in addition to high accuracy, such met­hods have many fundamental disadvantages: the need to obtain a sample of textile material, low productivity, inability to automate the process of determining surface density, and so on.
 In addition, it deals with optical methods for controlling surface density based on the imaging of textile material and its subsequent analysis. However, the presence of factors such as entanglement complexity, the presence of pores, and some others does not fully reveal the potential of optical surface density methods.
 The paper also shows that at different points in the surface of the textile material, its surface density may differ significantly from its average value. Therefore, there is a need for an automated scanning system that allows radiating and receiving electroacoustic converters to be moved to exactly the point of the surface of the textile material whose surface density requires measurement.
 In order to solve the problem, it was proposed to use a toothed belt gear, and to drive it with the help of step motors controlled through drivers. In turn, to communicate drivers with the control computer, it was proposed to use a microcontroller with an integrated USB interface (for example, manufactured by Microchip Technology Inc.), and software for it to write in one of the high-
 level programming languages (for example, C #).
 This construction of the automated scanning system is due to the fact that the existing means of linear movement, in terms of the design of the scanning system, have a lot of redundancy: too much cost, too much accuracy, the need to use specialized software, and so on.
 The use of the proposed linear positioning means will allow the scanning system to have sufficiently high metrological characteristics at a relatively low cost.