Patent 7421860 was granted and assigned to The University of Manchester on September, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
There is disclosed a knitting machine comprising: at least one knitting needle; at least one positive yarn feed device for feeding yarn to said at least one knitting needle; needle monitoring means for providing information relating to the at least one knitting needle during the course of a knitting operation; and a controller for controlling the operation of the positive yarn feed device; in which the controller is adapted to: receive information from the needle monitoring means during the course of a knitting operation; use said information to calculate a desired amount of yarn to be fed to a knitting needle; and control the positive yarn feed device so that the positive yarn feed device feeds the desired amount of yarn to the knitting needle during the course of the knitting operation.