November 2023

Journal

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

By:
Arbogast, Alexander W; Nycz, Andrzej ; Noakes, Mark W; Wang, Peter L; Masuo, Christopher J; Vaughan, Joshua E; Love, Lonnie J; Lind, Randall F; Carter, William G; Meyer, Luke T; Walters, Harold A; Patrick, Steven D; Paul, Jonathan H; Flamm, Jason K; Vaughan, Derek
Journal Name:
Additive Manufacturing Letters
Page Number:
100183
Volume:
8
Issue Number:
1
Publication Date:
November 30, 2023
View DOI Listing:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addlet.2023.100183

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.