A VIDEO of a robot folding clothes in Shenzhen has recently gone viral. While folding clothes may seem like a simple task, it represents a significant leap for robots to take over repetitive and tedious work from humans.

Deployed by the medical textile washing center of the Shenzhen Medical and Health Professional Service Center on Longyuan Road in Xili, Nanshan District, the robot can fold and neatly stack 1,200 hospital white coats per hour.

According to the center, the robot processes over 60% of the city’s health care fabrics daily, ranging from small items like operating table pads and newborn swaddling clothes to larger ones like bed sheets and quilts. The center’s daily washing and disinfection capacity reaches 60 tons.

In the center, once a soiled medical textile is washed and dried, it undergoes flattening and ironing to ensure there is not a single wrinkle before it is transported to the folding area. In traditional factories, the fabric folding area is the most labor-intensive zone.

“A skilled worker can fold 200 pieces of fabric per hour,” said Han Yanhong, director of the washing center. “The robot, however, can fold 1,200 pieces in an hour, averaging one piece every three seconds.”

The robot has two long “arms,” which are actually conveyor belts. Clothes hanging on hangers are horizontally fed into the machine through these “arms.”

The machine continuously blows air and, with the help of auxiliary plates, achieves continuous sleeve folding. Moreover, the robot can remove the hanger before making the first horizontal fold.

(Mu Zi)