The
Japanese inventor received 6 billion yen ($53 million) from partners, including
Panasonic Corp, last month to advance “the Laundroid“ -a robot Sakane is
developing to not only wash and dry garments, but also sort, fold and arrange
them. The refrigerator-size device could eventually fill the roles of washing
machine, dryer and clothes drawer.
Sakane,
whose earlier inventions include an anti-snoring device and golf clubs made of
space materials, said the funding will bring closer his dream of liberating humanity
from laundry . Among his inspirations for the project is the 1968 Stanley
Kubrick sci-fi classic `2001: A Space Odyssey'.Laundroid was designed to
resemble the mysterious objects in the film that brought technology to
prehistoric humans, and the project was originally code-named `Monolith'.
“That's
what we had inmind: a technology that never existed on Earth descends from
space,“ the 45-year-old Sakane, head of Seven Dreamers Laboratories Inc, said,
“If we could automate this, the act of doing laundry will be gone for good.“
While the full product is slated for release in 2019, an early version that can
only sort and fold clothing goes on sale worldwide in March.
Sakane
wouldn't disclose how Laundroid works, but patents show that users dump clothes
in a lower drawer and robotic arms grab each item as scanners look for features
such as buttons or a collar. Once identified, the clothes are folded using
sliding plates and neatly stacked on upper shelves for collection. “We tried so
many things and none of them worked,“ Sakane said last week. “A ton of team
members quit, saying it's impossible or that I'm crazy . But the ones who
remained came up with some truly brilliant ideas.“
Sakane
isn't the only one trying to reinvent the washing.FoldiMate Inc., a California-ba
sed rival, said it will take about half a minute to de-wrinkle and fold each
garment through its dryer-size machine. It's received more than 160,000
registrations of interest in its laundry-folder, which will require users to
clip clothes onto a conveyor-belt from which a robot takes, treats, de-wrinkles
and folds each item. The company will start accepting preorders in 2017.
Source: Times of India-3rd-December-2016
http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31804&articlexml=A-robot-that-washes-your-clothes-then-folds-03122016019035
