Visual Feedback Control of Print Trajectory in FDM-Type 3D Printing Process

Abstract

In recent years, additive manufacturing of FDM: Fused Deposition Modeling type 3D printing has been rapidly developed. However, failures in molding are inevitable, leading to loss of time and materials. In this study, we propose a motion control method that suppresses failures during the build process by using visual feedback control with an RGB camera. A camera installed near the nozzle detects the molding line and generates a new path from the coordinates obtained by the camera, thereby realizing path modification in real-time. In this paper, we conducted experiments to verify the effectiveness of the proposed path modification method and evaluated the tracking and modification effects. Moreover, we conducted a modeling experiment with visual feedback and confirmed the effectiveness of the vision-based path modification method to suppress failures beforehand. This vision-based compensation system is expected to contribute to automation and quality improvement of the additive manufacturing process and the production system.