Path Planning For Additive Manufacturing of Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing and Blue Light Fringe Projection Scanning

Current methods of manufacturing large scale parts can take up to six months to generate the objective product. The objective of the wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) hybrid cell is to significantly reduce lead time associated with large scale parts. The WAAM process utilizes a 6 degree-of-freedom (DOF) robot manipulator in addition to a 2 DOF part positioner. 5 degrees of freedom are necessary for an effective WAAM process, leaving 3 DOF as redundant in this cell. This thesis serves to prove successful implementation of redundant kinematics on a WAAM robotic system. This is accomplished by maintaining a gravity aligned welding torch. Maintaining gravity alignment means the welding torch remains in vertical alignment to the initial substrate in which it is printing on in a 1 G configuration. Gravity alignment is demonstrated in both simulation and real prints during the WAAM process of the hybrid manufacturing cell. After printing, the part is translated into position for scanning to inform the subtractive manufacturing process. Scanning in a manual setting can be a long and arduous process to generate scans of sufficient quality for the basis of informed machining. Effective path planning for scanning with the intent to reduce scanning time, increase quality of scans, and move toward a full automation of the hybrid manufacturing cell is also investigated in this thesis. Simulation software is used to create and verify path plans prior to importing and implementing on a 6 DOF robotic manipulator to which a GOM ATOS Q 3D scanner is mounted. The quality, amount of time necessary to produce, and number of scans required to produce a sufficient representation for machining are compared using three methods. The first method is a manual scanning configuration, the second is using a generalized path plan, and the third is using a geometry-based path plan.