- Despite the relatively high speed and efficiencies in loom with conventional picking, productivity of these machines will continue to be limited as long as their fundamental constructions involved the use of a shuttle propulsion. Vincent has shown that the power required for picking is proportional to the cube of the loom speed. If the loom speed is increased from 200 to 300 picks per minute, the power requirement would increase by a factor of (3/2)3 i.e. 3.4 times approximately. This results in following disadvantages
- Greater strain imposed on the picking mechanism, thus rendering it liable to frequent failure.
- Greater amount of noise and vibration.
- Because of superior energy in shuttle, greater strain is again imposed on the checking mechanism.
- The movement of shuttle will be more difficult to control and there will be a greater possibility of its ejection from the loom.
The dynamic problems created by the picking and checking mechanism and the inherent process of pirn winding for shuttle looms had encouraged the loom makers to develop alternative means of weft insertion in which heavy shuttle is not projected forwards and backwards across the width of the loom. It is customary to refer these looms as shuttleless looms. The various shuttleless loom that have been developed over a period of about 50 years can be
classified into various groups.