Integrated Product and Process Design for Robotic Additive Manufacturing

Robotic Additive Manufacturing is an emerging trend thanks to effective advances compared to traditional machines based on Cartesian movements. Reduction of the volume of supports and the related “staircase effect” increased inaccuracy and surface roughness, large printing volumes, more flexibility on the printing strategy, and use of multiple materials are just some of the potential benefits returned by robotic additive manufacturing. Nevertheless, the selection of suitable strategies, planning of the printing trajectories and definition of the related code to drive the robot movements are still managed by different digital tools that make it challenging to identify the optimal process. This work describes a Design for Robotic Additive Manufacturing approach to support the development of the printing process driven by complex machines such as robotic arms. Based on an available computer-aided design platform, the digital replica of the robotic system is recreated, and additive process alternatives are applied to simulate the fabrication of an automotive part. A first assessment of the design integration by the approach suggested is evaluated by the simulation of fuse material deposition for a simplified version of the selected use case.