Developed by the Institute of Robotics for Dependency, Laundry ID adds value to the laundrettes open in residential centres.
In Spain there are 1,860,600 people with disabilities of working age, according to the 2019 Report on Disabled People in Employment created by the Spanish Public Employment Service (SEPE), attached to the Ministry of Labour, Migrations and Social Security. The Ramon Molinas Foundation is collaborating with the Institute of Robotics for Dependency (IRD) with the aim of improving Laundry ID, technology that provides the opportunity to break down barriers to employment for people with disabilities.
Sponsored by the Ave María Foundation with technology developed by the IRD, Laundry ID is an inclusive, environmentally friendly and ergonomic laundrette that supports the inclusion of people with disabilities into the workplace by guiding employees in the process of operating a laundrette. Laundry ID simplifies the classification and sorting of laundry by attaching an RFID microchip to each garment, which helps to reduce the number of errors. As each item of clothing is folded by an employee, the Laundry ID system identifies the customer it belongs to and displays this information on a small screen. An LED light then indicates which basket to place each item to be collected. The Laundry ID process helps to standardise labelling and traceability, while also providing useful data and statistics on the use of laundry services.
Laundry ID, which is in the process of commercialisation, has developed additional features that will make it a more functional, comprehensive and competitive solution. The collaboration between the Ramon Molinas Foundation and the Institute of Robotics for Dependency prevents clothing belonging to different customers from being mixed up. Using advanced RFID technology, microchips are read at different frequencies, whereas the microchips used up to this point work just at a very short range – they only successfully identified a piece of clothing when there were no other garments nearby to interfere with the reading. This new technology can read several microchips at once, allowing the system to verify that all the pieces of clothing in one basket belong to the same person.
The Institute of Robotics for Dependency was created in 2015 thanks to the support of the Ave María Foundation. Based in Sitges, the Ave María Foundation is an organisation that has been offering specialised care for adults with intellectual disabilities since 1987. The Institute of Robotics for Dependency inherited the branch of research and investigation which up until that point had been managed by the Ave María Foundation. The challenge was to continue to update and innovate technology within the disability sector.
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