Iot-Enabled Additive Manufacturing: Improving Prototyping Speed And Customization In The Automotive Sector

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM), or three-dimensional (3D) printing, has expanded rapidly in the past few decades, with market growth rates near 30% over the past five years alone. AM technologies utilize multiple approaches to build parts and assemblies layer by layer, directly from a 3D CAD model, by supplying energy to a material to induce curing or solidification. Materials are typically polymer-based, metal-based, and ceramic composites. Unlike traditional manufacturing, which relies largely on subtractive and formative techniques, AM is a process that encompasses both formative and generative techniques, without requiring tooling suites and providing increased design and production flexibility, thus enabling the realization of complex geometries otherwise impossible or prohibitively expensive to manufacture through traditional means. It enables rapid commercialization of new technologies and products, facilitates the production of small runs of high-margin products, and can displace traditional supply chains for niche products.
To improve performance and range beyond traditional AM methodologies, many manufacturers have begun augmenting their systems with a form of Internet of Things (IoT) technology that involves the implementation of cloud and edge computing, large-scale data storage and processing capabilities, and a diverse range of sensors to achieve an Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) approach. Sensors embedded throughout the AM process chain monitor a variety of raw material, environmental, and resultant part characteristics in real-time. The resultant data collected is monitored through digital twin technology, weighed against large databases of historical part quality, and cross-checked to exploit machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms to close the loop for AM quality assurance and control. This capability achieves a rich capability set that many manufacturers claim can provide a two- to three-order-of-magnitude improvement in fidelity and throughput of AM processes and represent a sea change for additive manufacturing shortly.