Methods and apparatus for controlling motion of an articulated robot
AssigneeArevo, Inc.
InventorsArchana Kashikar, Wiener Mondesir
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Abstract
An article of manufacture is disclosed that is formed by jointly controlling a printhead and a worktable to provide three dimensional printing and insuring every point in a three dimensional print volume can be reached. Similarly, systems and methods are described to extend robot reach by coordinating robot and worktable control.
Claims15
An article of manufacture formed by three dimensional printing utilizing a controllable print head which prints lengths of fiber reinforced filament along an article tool path to form the article where said a tool path is generated by:
- utilizing computer aided design software to represent part geometry in a standard language file;
- utilizing slicing software to take the standard language file and slice the article into layers of toolpath;
- for each layer of toolpath generating a sequence of points defining a toolpath in a Gcode file;
- converting the Gcode file to an alternate Gcode file which eliminates rotation about at least one axis of rotation of a robot controlling movement of the print head and adds work table control code to control rotation of a work table;
- converting the alternate Gcode file to convert said alternate Gcode file into a text file the robot can interpret to execute motion and input/output (TO) commands to control print head travel;
- and
- utilizing the alternate Gcode file to control the work table to rotate in a manner insuring the tool path points that are required to make the article are reachable.
A computer implemented system of printing a three dimensional article fabricated from a series of additive material runs, the additive material runs comprising lengths of fiber reinforced filament, the system comprising:
- a robot controlling movement of a printhead for controllably depositing fiber reinforced filament,
- a rotatable worktable;
- a controller comprising hardware and software, the controller operating to generate toolpaths causing the robot to print a three dimensional article, and to control the robot and the rotatable worktable to coordinate their operation to insure the toolpath points that are required to print the article are reachable by utilizing work table rotation to eliminate or reduce rotation about at least one axis of rotation of the print head of the robot.
A method of printing a three dimensional article fabricated from a series of additive material runs, utilizing a computer-controlled robot and work table, the additive material runs comprising lengths of fiber reinforced filament, the method comprising:
- representing geometry of said article in a standard language file;
- slicing the article into layers of toolpath;
- generating a sequence of points defining a toolpath;
- eliminating rotation about at least one axis of rotation of a robot controlling movement of the print head;
- controlling work table rotation to compensate for the eliminated rotation of the robot utilizing a standard robot control file format to control print head travel;
- and
- coordinating work table rotation and robot control to insure the toolpath points required to make the article are reachable.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.