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Space ‘eye’ for textiles

15 February 2005

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A camera developed for Earth observation is now used to identify colour faults in textile production

Credits: AP Photo/Elaine Thompson

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Until now all colour validation of textiles has been done manually. A camera developed under Europe's space programmes for Earth observation is now used to identify very accurately any colour faults in textile production.

Credits: AP Photo/Bradley C Bower

From space to textiles

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The innovative machine Coltex to monitor colour variations during textile production uses a 'space eye', a special camera developed for remote sensing, to identify colour variations

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A consortium of five European companies developed an automated system to spot colour differences, thanks to the use of a camera that was developed for Earth observation. The prototype machine was presented for the first time at the 2003 Techtextile Fair in Frankfurt.

The results

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Until now it has been impossible to make a machine that is as good as the human eye at recognising colours. Now Coltex can check the colours in fabrics during the production.

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The Coltex machine uses an advanced computer processing system to identify differences in the colour of textiles. The operator can easily see the colour variations during the production of the fabrics.

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The heart of the textile colour monitoring machine Coltex for spotting colour defects in textiles is a spectrographic instrument. This system was developed by the Finnish company SPECIM for satellite remote sensing. It was tested on aerial platforms for precision farming and environmental monitoring, and proved to be capable of recognising also colour variations in textiles.

More information

Textile machine consortium