Highly Modular Postprocessing by Robot Kinematics in an Additive-Subtractive Manufacturing Process for Polymer Components

Additive manufacturing processes have the potential to economically address the trend towards greater individualization and shorter product availability driven by globalization and digitization. In addition, future products will need to meet regulatory requirements for reparability to prevent increasing resource scarcity. By repairing products, an extension of the product life cycle can be achieved and, in particular, material resources can be saved. In the context of a shortage of skilled workers, future manufacturing processes must be as flexible as possible to meet a wide range of requirements. In the field of electromobility, the high volatility of the market presents special challenges for production engineering. To meet all these challenges, a highly flexible machine for the additive-subtractive manufacturing of highly functional polymer components was developed. With the help of this process chain with inline process control and an industrial robot for the integration of subcomponents, it is intended to make fully automated post-processing, repair and modification of multi-material components using the fused filament fabrication process possible.