| Abstract Scope |
Additive manufacturing (AM) has been highlighted for its potential to manufacture near-to-net shape parts with complex geometries that are not possible by conventional manufacturing methods, along with reducing the material waste associated with the manufacturing process. Among AM processes, the wire-arc direct energy deposition (DED) is proposed as an alternative to building large parts with a high deposition rate by using gas-metal arc welding (GMAW). This welding process presents larger deposition rates than laser and electron-beam processes (suitable for higher resolution applications), with a lower cost and good lead time. Thus, the ability to program complex toolpaths based on a 3D CAD model is very important for the AM technique, since regular programming methods are not suitable for complex parts. Thus, this work comprises the implementation of Autodesk PowerMill as a software platform for generating robot programs for the deposition of complex geometry parts. Autodesk PowerMill 2024 with additive and robot plugins was used as a software platform for programming an OTC Daihen FD-V8 Welding Robot. The implementation of this software for this purpose comprises two main steps: the definition of a robotic cell digital twin, and the definition of the robot language post-processor. As result, a robot cell digital twin was developed which can solve the required robot pose sequence to follow the building toolpath, with collision prevention and singularity avoidance. This implementation enables the following work on path planning strategy optimization and robotic-driven wire-arc DED process control. |