Pros and Cons of Industrial Robots in Additive Manufacturing
Abstract. Advances in non-planar, multi-axis, and hybrid material extrusion additive manufacturing techniques increasingly demand active nozzle orientation control. Industrial articulated robot arms are commonly implemented for repetitive manufacturing tasks and these arms are becoming a common choice of motion platform for additive manufacturing given their ubiquity and flexibility. Here we explore the pragmatic benefits and challenges of using industrial robotic arms for extrusion additive manufacturing. While robotic arms from established manufacturers are highly capable, recent offerings are more easily integrated and safer, while providing the same or improved capabilities as the more traditional models.
Written while I was an undergraduate researcher with the Engineering Design and Optimization Group at Penn State. We built a ranking rubric for how well a given industrial robot arm suits extrusion additive manufacturing, then applied it to every commercially available arm we could find in our payload class.
Published by the University of Texas at Austin. The paper begins at page 1933 of the proceedings.