Abstract: In a cloth spreading machine having a motor-driven cradle for holding a roll of cloth and feeding cloth from the roll onto a supporting surface along which the machine travels, a first signal is provided which is proportional to the speed of travel of the machine, a second signal is provided which is proportional to the rate of feed of cloth from the roll, and a control responsive to the first and second signals provides a signal for controlling the speed of the cradle motor so that the rate of feed of cloth from the roll is substantially equal to the speed of travel of the machine along the surface. Sudden changes in tension on the cloth due to acceleration or deceleration of the machine cause movements in a dancer bar which are converted by a transducer to an input to the control for causing a relatively rapid compensating increase or decrease in the speed of the cradle motor.

Abstract: A cloth-spreading apparatus having an improved control for controlling the movement of a carriage assembly across an elongated table. The control includes one or more sensors in the form of photoelectric eyes (52-58) which are capable of sensing a light-reflective medium (60, 76) and nonreflective surfaces (72, 74 or 78), which sensed positions are processed by a controller (50) to cause an electric motor (42) to be slowed down when the carriage assembly (24) reaches a slowdown position and to be stopped or reversed when a stop position is attained. The sensors are in an "on" state when the carriage assembly is moving and in an "off" state when the carriage assembly is not moving.