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Multinational automotive producer Ford has begun utilizing an autonomous robotic inside its manufacturing line to 3D print end-use elements for its automobiles.
Leveraging an in-house-developed interface, Ford has managed to get the KUKA-built bot to ‘converse the identical language’ as its different techniques, and function them with out human interplay. To date, the agency’s patent-pending strategy has been deployed to 3D print customized elements for the Mustang Shelby GT500 sports activities automotive, but it surely might but yield effectivity financial savings throughout its manufacturing workflow.
“This new course of has the power to vary the best way we use robotics in our manufacturing amenities,” stated Jason Ryska, Ford’s Director of World Manufacturing Expertise Growth. “Not solely does it allow Ford to scale its 3D printer operations, it extends into different features of our manufacturing processes – this expertise will permit us to simplify gear and be much more versatile on the meeting line.”
3D printing at Ford’s innovation hub
Since buying an SLA 3 system again within the late Eighties, Ford has persistently sought to combine 3D printing into completely different features of its automobile manufacturing course of. As revealed in a latest interview with AMUG keynote speaker Ellen Lee, the agency makes use of the expertise, not simply inside fluid move visualization and wind tunnel testing, however within the creation of jigs, fixtures and end-use parts for its automobiles.
A lot of Ford’s work round 3D printing takes place at its Superior Manufacturing Middle (AMC), a facility that now homes SLA, FDM and SLS techniques, amongst a spread of different superior equipment. Whereas the AMC staff spends quite a lot of time verifying the feasibility of printed elements or assessing how applied sciences like 3D printing might be higher utilized, their work has yielded numerous latest breakthroughs.
Simply final month, Ford launched CAD recordsdata that allow its prospects to 3D print pickup truck equipment reminiscent of cup holders or cellphone mounts, and thru working with HP final yr, it developed a way of recycling 3D printing waste into F-250 elements.
Going additional again, the corporate additionally partnered with DLS specialist Carbon in 2015, as a way of initially expediting its prototyping workflow, however with the longer-term purpose of utilizing the expertise for half manufacturing. With the information that it has developed an automatic Carbon 3D printing workflow, it now seems that Ford has handed this milestone, and set its sights on driving effectivity from the method.
Interfacing with autonomous robots
Like most firms, Ford makes use of techniques at its manufacturing amenities which were developed individually from each other, therefore they don’t run the identical interface and may’t often talk backwards and forwards. Nonetheless, the agency has now shifted this paradigm, by growing a singular utility interface program that allows techniques of various makes to ship fixed suggestions to one another.
When utilized to the robotic arm on wheels housed at Ford’s AMC, which it has nicknamed ‘Javier,’ the software program basically permits it to ‘speak to’ the Carbon 3D printers there. Because of this, the bot is now capable of inform when the middle’s additive manufactured elements will likely be completed, in addition to after they’re prepared for pick-up, working autonomously all evening lengthy with out requiring any human enter in any respect.
Though Ford admits that its operators are nonetheless answerable for importing designs to the printer and sustaining equipment, it says its strategy does unlock greater half throughputs and reduces associated prices. The agency additionally claims to have used Javier’s suggestions to scale back the margins of error inside its processes, permitting it to “obtain nice accuracy” in manufacturing regardless of the bot not having the imaginative and prescient techniques to ‘see.’
At current, the corporate is using its setup to make low-volume, customized elements reminiscent of a brake line bracket for the Efficiency Bundle-equipped model of its Mustang Shelby GT500. Shifting forwards although, Ford believes its program could possibly be utilized to make different robots in its manufacturing line extra environment friendly as effectively, and it has filed a number of patents, not simply on its interface, however the positioning of its KUKA bot.
The aggressive world of automotive AM
Because of the highly-competitive nature of the automotive business, we could not know the complete extent to which many main producers make the most of 3D printing, however at times they do present us with a glimpse of the best way it’s used behind the scenes.
Again in June 2021, it was revealed that Volkswagen has adopted binder jetting at its principal plant in Wolfsburg, Germany. Working as a part of a undertaking that reportedly made it the primary automotive maker to deploy the expertise inside its manufacturing course of, the agency has partnered with HP and Siemens with the goal of driving larger effectivity and half throughput there.
Equally, fellow car-manufacturing multinational Groupe Renault has introduced plans to combine 3D printing capabilities into its new sustainable automotive ‘Re-Manufacturing unit.’ Particularly, the corporate says that the complicated, which is ready to deal with decreasing waste by recycling and retrofitting automobiles, will function a spare half additive manufacturing service.
At Audi’s Metallic 3D Printing Centre in Ingolstadt, in the meantime, its engineers have begun ramping up their deployment of EOS applied sciences to 3D print scorching kind tooling. In doing so, the agency says it’s now capable of produce twelve completely different segments of 4 scorching forming instruments on the facility, that are later used to assemble automotive fashions just like the A4 saloon.
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Featured picture exhibits Ford’s ‘Javier’ autonomous 3D printing robotic. Photograph by way of Ford.
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