Vision-guided robotic automation of vat polymerization additive manufacturing production: design, calibration and verification

Purpose – This study aims to present a vision-guided robotic system design for application in vat photopolymerization additive manufacturing (AM), enabling vat photopolymerization AM hybrid with injection molding process. Design/methodology/approach – In the system, a robot equipped with a camera and a custom-made gripper as well as driven by a visual servoing (VS) controller is expected to perceive objective, handle variation, connect multi-process steps in soft tooling process and realize automation of vat photopolymerization AM. Meanwhile, the vat photopolymerization AM printer is customized in both hardware and software to interact with the robotic system. Findings – By ArUco marker-based vision-guided robotic system, the printing platform can be manipulated in arbitrary initial position quickly and robustly, which constitutes the first step in exploring automation of vat photopolymerization AM hybrid with soft tooling process. Originality/value – The vision-guided robotic system monitors and controls vat photopolymerization AM process, which has potential for vat photopolymerization AM hybrid with other mass production methods, for instance, injection molding.