The project consists in the design of a concrete 3D printer that would originally be
used for manufacturing street furniture. It is divided into two main parts which are the
frame and software design.
The structure where the robot is attached to has to follow some requirements to make
it as flexible as possible. Transportation and stiffness are probably the most important
facts to take into account in the design as long as the printing area is also satisfied.
The solution found is to design a frame made out of aluminum extrusion that is light,
stiff and compact enough to be able to be moved and print without any preparation
required.
Regarding the software, it has been developed using the well known program
MATLAB. In this platform a few steps have been followed to process STL1 files and
generate the RAPID code used on ABB Robotstudio. Once the STL files have been
read and their data has been stored a slicing algorithm divides the CAD2 design into
many layers. Then all solid areas of the drawing are identified and an algorithm starts
analyzing the Hamiltonian paths/cycles on every layer. Finally, the data collected is
translated in RAPID and stored into a TXT file.
An additional DOF3 has also been added to increase the printing volume. It is a linear
motion device which moves the robot along the x axis. The idea is that the control is
done with a micro controller unit that interacts with the robot’s cabinet to indicate
how far the robot platform should move. This new device would be called when the
software detects the robot is reaching a singular point (a joint out of range).
