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“The biggest challenge the shoe industry has is how do you create a robot that puts the lace into the shoe...
That’s a complete manual process today. There is no technology for that.” said Kasper Rorsted, CEO of Adidas, when interviewed by Financial Times in April 2017.
Unbeknownst to Mr. Rorsted, the world’s first automated lacing machine has been developed and patented recently. Using 3D stereo vision to guide robot lacing through eyelets imprecisely punched by labors, Auto Lacer is capable of lacing at speed approaching that of factory worker. The algorithm also detects deviations in how shoes are placed onto the machine and adjust robot’s lacing path accordingly.
Several major shoe brands, both sports and casual shoes, are evaluating Smart Lacer as part of their efforts to automate shoe production processes. The machine also demonstrates that by deploying advanced vision technologies robots can carry out tasks previously considered only possible by humans.
