Support Generation for Robot-Assisted 3D Printing with Curved Layers

IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), London, UK

By Tianyu Zhang

Robot-assisted 3D printing has drawn a lot of attention because of its capability to fabricate curved layers that are optimized according to different objectives. However, the support generation algorithm based on a fixed printing direction for planar layers cannot be directly applied to curved layers as the orientation of material accumulation is dynamically varied. In this project, we propose a skeleton-based support generation method for robot-assisted 3D printing with curved layers.

Source Code is available!

printing_result

Pipeline for curved support generation
  1. Computational domain generation from support envelop hull;
  2. Compatible curved support layers generation;
  3. Tree-like support skeleton calculation;
  4. Implicit solid construction;
  5. Support region extraction;

pipeline

Dual-material Robot-assisted 3D Printing System

A 2-in-1 extruder is installed on the end-effector of the robot arm, different filaments can be controlled to pass through the Y-shape structure alternatively. A router is employed as the core of communication between the controller of UR5e, Duet3D, and the laptop PC.

hardware

Contact:

Tianyu Zhang (tianyu.zhang-10@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk)