Strategies for a scalable multi-robot large scale wire arc additive manufacturing system

Alex Arbogast, Andrzej Nycz, Mark W. Noakes, Peter Wang, Christopher Masuo, Joshua Vaughan, Lonnie Love, Randall Lind, William Carter, Luke Meyer, Derek Vaughan, Alex Walters, Steven Patrick, Jonathan Paul, Jason Flamm

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Conventional robotic wire arc additive manufacturing technologies enable the rapid production of moderate-sized components using low-cost wire feedstocks and robotic welding systems. Efforts to date have primarily focused on single robot solutions. However, new configurations are possible with coordination of multiple robots and multi-degree of freedom positioners. This paper describes a new multi-agent control paradigm that enables multiple robots to work collaboratively on manufacturing a single component on a rotating platform. The advantages of this approach are increased deposition rate and productivity. This paper demonstrates this control strategy on a 19 degrees-of-freedom platform based on three wire arc additive systems surrounding a single rotating platform.

Original languageEnglish
Article number100183
JournalAdditive Manufacturing Letters
Volume8
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2024

Funding

The authors would like to thank Lincoln Electric for their contributions to this work. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy , Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Office of Advanced Manufacturing , under contract number DE-AC05- 00OR22725 .

Keywords

  • 3D printing
  • Additive manufacturing
  • Coordinated robot motion
  • Directed energy deposition
  • Machine intelligence
  • Robotics

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