Print As a Dance Duet: Communication Strategies for Collision-Free Arm-Arm Coordination in Cooperative 3D Printing
Conference Paper
Overview
Research
Identity
Other
View All
Overview
abstract
AbstractOne of the major challenges in 3D printing is its lack of scalability both in size and speed, which directly impacts its economic feasibility for large-scale industrial applications. Cooperative 3D printing (C3DP) is an emerging paradigm that aims to address these issues by employing multiple mobile printers that work in parallel. However, a crucial step in enabling C3DP is the development of a collision-free communication framework between the printers during the manufacturing process. Many C3DP systems found in the literature develop solutions for collision-free printing that are specific to the setup being used, thus not allowing the solution to be transferred to other similar systems. In this paper, we formulate a general framework that generates four distinct collision-free communication strategies to enable arm-arm coordination for C3DP using robotic manipulators. We considered collisions both between the arms with themselves and between the arms and the part being printed. The strategies are general in that they are agnostic to the number of printers, their kinematics, and their spatial configurations in the manufacturing environment. We conducted a study of the four strategies using a two-printer scenario and then physically validated them with four test cases of varying geometries. The results show that the strategies successfully produce printed parts while being collision-free. The makespan reduction using our strategies when compared to a single printer varied from 20% to 42% depending on the strategy used. Finally, we discuss the limitations of the framework, as well as future research directions.
name of conference
Volume 2: 43rd Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (CIE)
