Pentagon Spending $1.3 Million To Develop Unmanned Sewing Machine

Now that the Pentagon has managed to fly unmanned aerial drones into war zones they are shifting their focus to another battle, sewing machines. A recently revealed pentagon document discovered a $1.3 million investment in the future of unmanned sewing machines.

The Pentagon’s venture capital arm awarded the money to technology firm Softwear Automation who is now tasked with creating the state of the art machines.

The idea behind the project is to help the garment industry manufacture clothing and other items without the need for assembly line workers who are often located in poor countries and paid slave labor type wages.

The $1.3 million will be used to create a “numerically controlled sewing machine” which is capable of counting threads in fabric and then shifting each piece of garment automatically as stitches are applied via computer program.

Softwear Automation was started by robotics and engineering researcher Steve Dickerson.

The contract is not just a “proof of concept” build, it clearly states that the projects main goal is to create:

“Complete production facilities that produce garments with zero direct labor is the ultimate goal.”

If you are interested in learning more about the automated garment contract you can find full information regarding the contract HERE.

With tens of thousands of soldiers serving in the military the automated creation of garments could potentially save the armed forces millions of dollars in uniform costs, at the same time it could also make for a really nice shirt from J. Crew if the project is a success.