Tired of laundry folding? AI breaks the robot folding speed record

While it's possible that someone out there enjoys folding clothes, it's probably not a beloved pastime. Accordingly, researchers at UC Berkeley's AUTOLAB have developed a new robotic method of folding garments at record speed (for a robot) called SpeedFolding. Using machine vision, a neural network called BiManual Manipulation Network (BiMaMa-Net), and a pair of industrial robot arms, SpeedFolding can fold 30–40 randomly positioned garments per hour, usually finishing each within two minutes. While that rate does not sound impressive compared to a human, previous robotic garment-folding methods reached only "3-6 FPH" (that's "folds per hour") according to the researchers in a paper submitted for presentation at IROS2022 next week in Kyoto. Speed achievement aside, the paper is worth a read to enjoy how the researchers describe the garment-folding problem in technical terms.