Precise Top-Layer Fabric Segmentation for Fabric Destacking with Edge- and Shape-Aware Deep Networks

Fabric destacking requires precise segmentation of the topmost fabric layer, a task complicated by subtle fabric boundaries and high visual similarity between fabric layers. Existing semantic and edge-based segmentation approaches often struggle with these complexities, limiting the performance of robotic manipulation for different tasks. In this work, a novel segmentation training architecture tailored for top-layer fabric segmentation in stacked fabrics is proposed. The method ex-tends the classical encoder-decoder framework by introducing two specialized branches-an edge-aware branch and a shape-aware branch-that are used to supervise the backbone network for better tuning. The edge-aware branch enhances boundary delineation, while the shape-aware branch guides the network to capture and align the overall fabric shape with reference masks derived from Computer Aided Design (CAD) models. Experiments on a real-world fabric dataset demonstrate that the training approach outperforms established baselines, verifying the effectiveness of the multi-branch design through both quan-titative results and ablation studies. © 2025 IEEE.