Cooperative Tool Path Planning for Wire Embedding on Additively Manufactured Curved Surfaces Using Robot Kinematics

To build multimaterial objects using additive manufacturing (AM), modifications to the majority of current conventional AM processes are required. Typically, deposition can only occur on flat surfaces and motion requires three degrees of freedom (DOFs) in a Cartesian coordinate system. In this work, metal wire and mesh were successfully embedded using ultrasonic energy on curved thermoplastic structures fabricated via the material extrusion AM technology named fused deposition modeling (FDM). The direct wire embedding process was executed by installing an ultrasonic horn on a three-axis prismatic machine and fixing an FDM-built curved part on a rotary stage. Since the part was nonplanar, a need existed to accurately place metal wire along the curved surface with positions defined by Cartesian and angular coordinates. Two additional DOFs were generated by moving both the build platform and tool head, and trajectory planning allowed for synchronized motion between the two motion systems.