Monitoring and control of Additive Manufacturing with the Robot Operating System

Additive manufacturing using Plasma Arc Welding allows precisely controlled application of energy and filler metal. Compared to the many advanced control methods used in Gas Metal Arc Welding, Plasma Arc Welding currently relies heavily on human input and supervision. The present work proposes a fully mechanised system consisting of a power source, a wire feeder and an industrial robot using pure object manipulation for maximum handling flexibility. In order to automate the process, a control strategy is implemented by adjusting the wire feed speed according to the measured arc voltage. Subsequent analysis of the produced part and transient power source data shows good agreement. The combined monitoring of process parameters and robot kinematics in a unified system provided by the Robot Operating System allows the assessment of process variations and provides a powerful tool for quality assurance.