Robots increasingly facilitate additive manufacturing, enabling efficiency, precision, and the size of created parts. In this growing field, long-time industry leaders and start-up companies improve additive manufacturing (3D printing) results with robots.

Two companies that make single-piece components with robotic assistance are Arevo, a Silicon Valley start-up, and Fanuc America. These are two of many companies that innovate in the field, working to create larger parts and eliminate weak joints.

In contrast, Physik Instrumente (PI), a German company with U.S. headquarters in Auburn, Mass., drills down for sub-micron precision in its parts, which in turn allows additive manufacturers greater precision in additive manufacturing processes.

Maximizing automation from the start

Arevo, launched in 2013 as a start-up, has developed direct digital technology to create strong, lightweight parts on demand for a range of customers. Wiener Mondesir, a co-founder, and chief technology officer (CTO) of the Silicon Valley company, described how its proprietary software, Xplorator, allows the creation of light carbon fiber composites.

Figure 2: Smooth surface finish after post processing. Courtesy: FANUC/RIA[/caption]

After Arevo created its first prototypes, it added robots to provide multiaccess capability and the ability to orient in 3D space. Arevo’s use of carbon fiber composites allows a short turnaround from concept to a functional product. Its industrial-grade continuous fiber 3D printing system can print parts of up to one cubic meter volume.

Key wins along the way

Arevo accepts orders from clients for parts and continues to develop new uses for carbon fiber composites, hosting monthly hackathons. From these hackathons, it has developed a well-received continuous carbon fiber tennis racket and furniture. In a separate initiative, Arevo developed a carbon fiber bicycle this year, the Superstrata, which began as a technology and product demonstration, but also has an exciting market. Its frame is a single piece of carbon fiber designed with Arevo’s Xplorator and printed on its Aqua platform. Each bike is custom-made to accommodate different leg lengths and body sizes.

Arevo is expanding its printing capacity from five Aqua machines at its farm in Milpitas, Calif., by adding 15 Aqua machines to a new farm in Vietnam. The farm in Vietnam is planned to grow to 100 machines. “It’s probably the only country open and speeding ahead right now in this COVID time, and it just so happens our CEO is from there.”

Fast redesign and turnaround are key. Mondesir said, “If you are able to move at this speed, you have the ability to change on the fly, and if something isn’t working, you make the change and continue. Automation enables all of this.”

Metal wire for additive manufacturing of large parts

Fanuc America Corp., based in Rochester Hills, Mich., is the No. 1 manufacturer of robots in the U.S., with a broad range of customers in the automotive, aerospace, agricultural equipment, and many other industries. Its parent company, Fanuc, was founded in Japan in 1956.

Fanuc America also supplies the aerospace industry with robots that perform additive manufacturing or 3D printing by working with partners that specialize in the integration of robots for building automated systems.

Recent advances in weld-wire additive manufacturing (WAAM) allows the creation of large parts with robotic assistance. Mark Scherler, a general manager of Fanuc America, said the weld-wire process creates metal parts suitable for automobiles and airplanes.

“When an extrusion head can be placed on a robot, it goes from having a three-axis system to a six-axis system,” Scherler said. “So obviously, we can manipulate the head quite a number of ways with robot models that provide a larger envelope than what standard additive systems allows you to do. So you can build bigger parts.”

Scherler said he is excited by new possibilities allowed by the additive process, including flexibility in design, reduction in weight, and designs that are more efficient to build. “It opens up a lot of new ideas for manufacturing.” Only some of Fanuc’s 100-person research and development team focuses on additive manufacturing, but the focus has grown.

For example, Scherler said, “A number of years ago, I wasn’t really thinking about additive using weld wire. But that process is certainly mature enough that people are using it. And being able to put that on one of our robots and building a part is pretty exciting.”

In addition, Fanuc embraced the collaborative robot (cobot) concept, which allows a human to interact with or stand near a robot as it works, without the standard guarding that separates robots from humans. Fanuc has demonstrated the collaborative robot at shows such as Fabtech, performing WAAM for small metal parts typical for the aerospace industry. In production manufacturing, such parts can be three or four feet tall.

Honing precision for additive manufacturing systems

Physik Instrumente (PI), a German company with a U.S. presence and U.S. headquarters in Auburn, Mass., focuses on motion systems that are enabling the creation of the highest precision parts for additive manufacturing systems. Matthew Price, the technical manager of precision automation for PI, says that PI has a team of 40 to 50 people works to create the more precise parts for their customers dedicated to additive manufacturing, often with features measured on micron and sub-micron scales.

Figure 6: Additive manufacturing in the nanoworld. The TERA-Fab desktop printer for nanostructures. It employs a compact 3D piezo nanopositioning stage (model P-611 PI NanoCube) to move the substrate under the beam pen array. Courtesy: TERA-print/RIA[/caption]

PI’s goal is to continue to enhance the performance of manufacturers that use robots to perform additive manufacturing. “We’re not going to have the kind of materials/process expertise they have. They will never have the kind of precision automation expertise we have on our side. And when you put the two together, then I think that’s how you really get the best result.”

Laura Moretz is contributing editor for the Robotic Industries Association (RIA) and Robotics Online. RIA is a not-for-profit trade association dedicated to improving the regional, national, and global competitiveness of the North American manufacturing and service sectors through robotics and related automation. This article originally appeared on the RIA website. The RIA is a part of the Association for Advancing Automation (A3), a CFE Media content partner. Edited by Chris Vavra, associate editor, Control Engineering, CFE Media & Technology, cvavra@cfemedia.com.

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Keywords: robotics, additive manufacturing

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