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

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.

Keywords

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