Convergence of technologies the next big thing

PEOPLE often ask what the next big thing is in the world of technological innovation.

Ray Bingham, the previous executive chairman of Cypress Semiconductor Corporation, said: “The next big thing is a trillion small things.”

This is particularly true of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) that builds on the digital revolution and is characterised by a convergence of different technologies that are seamlessly and smartly merging the physical, digital and biological spheres, thus significantly impacting the social and economic realms.

It is the convergence of three of these technologies – 3D printing, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics – that is opening up new possibilities. 3D printing provides designers with the freedom to introduce new functionality to their robots as research and development progresses, as well as the flexibility to customise the robots for specific uses.

3D printing is thus not only used for designing and prototyping of robots, but is also widely used as a smart manufacturing practice for production due to the recognition of the benefits of additive manufacturing.

But the convergence goes far beyond the 3D printing of robots. 3D printing and robotics is combined to create smart factories where large objects need to be created additively very accurately and repeatedly.

The combination of 3D printing and industrial robots is attained either by equipping a robotic arm with a material deposition head, as was done by Stratasys with their Robotic Composite 3D Demonstrator.

Alternatively, an integrated solution could be created where industrial robots assist 3D printing at various stages of the production process.

Robotic Additive Manufacturing (RAM) or robotic 3D printing seems to be a game-changer in the metal casting industry, partly because it provides a scalable platform to produce custom-made, geometrically complex objects faster and on demand.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of robotic 3D printing is perhaps the construction industry, where it is used to create large and complex geometric structures such as façade panels, columns, benches, pavilions and steel bridges.

But it is only when the robots and additive machines are combined with AI that smart and automated repair becomes possible. The Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, in partnership with the Innovative Manufacturing Co-operative Research Centre and Tradiebot Industries, has been working on a project called Repair Bot.

3D scanning and 3D printing are used to create replacement car parts, while industrial robots automate the assembly and repair process.

But AMBOTS Inc has gone much further into the realm of “swarm” (team) robotics by commercialising swarm 3D printing and assembly technologies invented by the AM3 Lab at the University of Arkansas. The basic idea to implement autonomous manufacturing is to break down digital designs into a set of basic manufacturing tasks that can be executed and co-ordinated by a “swarm” of specialised robots.

The first basic manufacturing task is the depositing and joining of materials. AMBOTS therefore developed a wirelessly-controlled mobile robot that can deposit and join materials for 3D printing.

Assembly is another basic task for the manufacturing of any complex product. A pick-and-place mobile robot for digital assembly was therefore developed to be the second member of the mobile robot crew. Many other robot crew members are being developed, such as a tape-laying robot, inkjet robot, adhesive printing robot and screw-driving robot.

Each robot is 80 percent 3D printed and is almost an entire construction crew able to complete intricate production tasks, assemble items, use tools, weld and even do some 3D printing of their own. Each printbot has a printer, filament spool and an extruder.

To enable a swarm of mobile robots to work together without causing conflicts, painstaking planning is needed. This is done through software that analyses the conceptual design and digital model, splits it into smaller tasks, assigns the tasks to different robots and schedules the robots to finish the tasks in sequence and in parallel to produce physical products from a variety of materials.

When a “swarm” of 3D printing robots acts as an organised unit, they are capable of performing tasks much more complicated than an individual machine can handle. The idea of swarm 3D printing originated from nature, where ants and bees operate in self-organised teams while constantly communicating with one another to complete a common, and often complex, goal.

The idea of AMBOT is to change the current mass production of products by building generalised, autonomous factories that can produce anything for anyone on demand and inexpensively. Could swarm 3D printing and assembly possibly be the next generation 3D printing technology? If so, they would certainly replace human workers. Nevertheless, swarm robotics offers new solutions to real-world problems through flexibility, robustness, and scalability.

Come to think of it, individuals have never been so powerful, due to effective personalised devices such as PCs and smartphones. 3D printing technology is literally bringing individual power into a new dimension by blurring the boundary between information and physical products.

As a result, our society is facing two paradigm shifts: 1. From the era of personal computing to personal fabrication and 2. From the era of mass production to mass customisation.

Professor Louis Fourie is the deputy vice-chancellor: knowledge and information technology of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.