Discrete Assembly End Effector (component)

Digital Material Systems

Part v Assembler Complexity

gantry based voxel assembly

relative robot version (design)

Captive Hardware, example

In order to produce accurate parts from a desirable material (CFRP), I developed a way to cut sets of struts using the branching pattern shown below.

This allows parts to be cut in a single pass, while minimizing the cut time between head and tail of the part, thus resulting in part lengths repeatable within the tolerances of the machine (0.001 in)

Bolter protoype

The effort for controls is to define the tasks of the machine and then to define motions to accomplish the tasks.
Main tasks:

• Pick up voxel at voxel station
• Bring voxel to location for assembly
• Assembly (fasten) voxel
• Return

Due to the setup of the machine, we can define these based on simple, internally closed-loop, position control settings.
Then, the build sequence is simply interpolating between these position settings, in sequence.
These positions are as follows:

1. Start
2. Rotate 90 to Voxel pickup
3. Lower end effector
4. Grip voxel
5. Raise end effector with gripped voxel
6. Rotate 180 to voxel placement location
7. Lower voxel
8. Turn on drill
9. Move drill forward, pause, move drill back
10. Rotate drill to +120, repeat
11. Rotate drill to -120, repeat
12. Return to central position
13. Ungrip voxel
14. Raise end effector
15. End

...coming Summer 2018

Will also combine path planning and voxel assembly