Investigation on Additive Manufacturing Processes Performed by Collaborative Robot

The additive manufacturing (AM) applications using collaborative robots (cobot) are rapidly increasing in the manufacturing field. The integration of AM with a cobot abilities can help prototyping and manufacturing custom-made parts in a more efficient way. This paper relies on manufacturing cell that combines a fused deposition modeling (FDM) extruder with a 6-axis cobot controlled by IoT edge computing devices. The production processes are designed in a robot simulation software, where digital twin (DT) of the manufacturing cell is available. Direct and reverse communication between the simulation software and the physical manufacturing cell allows for implementing the real industrial cases. The manufacturing cell has been tested to demonstrate the viability of replacing traditional 3D printers in the industrial sector while taking advantage of working in a complex and dynamic environment. According to this approach this paper promotes the enlargement of the set of robot-abilities by adding additive manufacturing capabilities.