System and method for constructing process plans for hybrid manufacturing with the aid of a digital computer

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11599099-B2
Application number	US-202016903073-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 16, 2020
Priority date	Dec 29, 2017
Publication date	Mar 7, 2023
Grant date	Mar 7, 2023

Abstract

A systematic approach to constructing process plans for hybrid manufacturing is provided. The process plans include arbitrary combinations of AM and SM processes. Unlike the suboptimal conventional practice, the sequence of AM and SM modalities is not fixed beforehand. Rather, all potentially viable process plans to fabricate a desired target part from arbitrary alternating sequences of pre-defined AM and SM modalities are explored in a systematic fashion. Once the state space of all process plans has been enumerated in terms of a partially ordered set of states, advanced artificial intelligence (AI) planning techniques are utilized to rapidly explore the state space, eliminate invalid process plans, for instance, process plans that make no physical sense, and optimize among the valid process plans using a cost function, for instance, manufacturing time and material or process costs.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented system for determining manufacturability of a part for hybrid manufacturing, the system comprising:
a non-transitory, computer readable storage device configured to store:
a model of an as-designed part;
parameters for one or more manufacturing instruments available to the system for the hybrid manufacturing of the as-designed part; and
manufacturing capabilities for the one or more manufacturing instruments;

a hardware processor coupled to the storage device and to memory, the memory configured to store code for execution by the processor, the processor, memory, and code configured to:
compute manufacturing primitives for each manufacturing instrument of the one or more manufacturing instruments, each manufacturing primitive comprising a shape that is manufacturable through a single manufacturing action that can be performed by the manufacturing instrument;
generate a combination of the manufacturing primitives;
determine atomic regions of a manufacturing workspace encompassing the manufacturing primitives that are influenced consistently by a subcollection of the combination of the manufacturing primitives;
determine if the subcollection of the manufacturing primitives can bring the atomic regions into existence via additive manufacturing or cause the atomic regions to disappear via subtractive manufacturing; and
determine that the as-designed part is manufacturable according to a manufacturing sequence described in terms of a combination of the manufacturing primitives, wherein the manufacturing sequence comprises only additive manufacturing primitives, only subtractive manufacturing primitives, or a combination of the additive manufacturing primitives and the subtractive manufacturing primitives; and
form a process plan for manufacturing the part, the process plan including a sequence of manufacturing actions that is performable by the one or more manufacturing instruments according to the manufacturing sequence, the process plan used to manufacture the part via the one or more manufacturing instruments.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processor, memory, and code are configured to:
compute canonical intersection terms by taking intersections and complements of the manufacturing primitives, each canonical intersection term defining a three-dimensional region that is completely inside or completely outside each of the manufacturing primitives; and
form one or more different subcollections of the canonical intersection terms that comprise a representation of an as-manufactured artifact that is interchangeable with the as-designed part in view of semantically-defined tolerance specifications.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein:
the storage device is configured to store semantics for interchangeability of an as-manufactured part; and
the processor, memory, and code are configured to determine whether there exists a union of a subcollection of the canonical intersection terms that matches the as-designed part with respect to the semantics for interchangeability.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the semantics for interchangeability comprise geometrical dimensioning and tolerancing semantics.

5. The system of claim 3 , wherein the processor, memory, and code are configured to:
if no union was found, extract further canonical intersection terms by taking the intersections of the manufacturing primitives with at least one additional manufacturing primitive and the complements for all of the manufacturing primitives, and forming one or more sub collections of the further canonical intersection terms; and
reattempt to determine whether the union of at least one of the subcollections of the further canonical intersection terms matches the as-designed part with respect to the semantics for interchangeability.

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the processor, memory, and code are configured to:
determine whether one of the canonical intersection terms needs to be split to match the as-designed part; and
select an additional manufacturing primitive whose surface provides the split.

7. The system of claim 5 , wherein the processor, memory, and code are configured to determine non-manufacturability of the as-designed part if no matching union of the further canonical intersection terms can be found.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processor, memory, and code are configured to operate the manufacturing instruments according to the sequence of manufacturing actions in the process plan.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the process plan comprises an arbitrarily-ordered, multimodal sequence of additive and subtractive manufacturing actions that can be performed by the manufacturing instruments.

10. A computer-implemented system for determining manufacturability of a part for hybrid manufacturing, the system comprising:
a non-transitory computer readable storage device configured to store:
a model of an as-designed part;
parameters for one or more manufacturing instruments available to the system for the hybrid manufacturing of the as-designed part; and
manufacturing capabilities for the one or more manufacturing instruments;

a hardware processor coupled to the storage device and to memory, the memory configured to store code for execution by the processor, the processor, memory, and code configured to:
compute manufacturing primitives for each manufacturing instrument of the one or more manufacturing instruments, each manufacturing primitive comprising a shape that is manufacturable through a single manufacturing action that can be performed by the manufacturing instrument;
determine whether atomic regions of a manufacturing workspace encompassing the manufacturing primitives can be refined into smaller regions to make a non-manufacturable as-designed part manufacturable;
determine properties of a new manufacturing primitive needed to satisfy the refinement;
determine that the as-designed part is manufacturable according to a manufacturing sequence described in terms of a combination of the manufacturing primitives, wherein the manufacturing sequence comprises only additive manufacturing primitives, only subtractive manufacturing primitives, or a combination of the additive manufacturing primitives and the subtractive manufacturing primitives; and
form a process plan for manufacturing the part, the process plan includes a sequence of manufacturing actions that is performable by the manufacturing instruments according to the manufacturing sequence, the process plan used to manufacture the part via the one or more manufacturing instruments.

11. A computer-implemented method for determining manufacturability of a part for hybrid manufacturing, the method comprising:
providing a processor with a model of an as-designed part to be fabricated by the hybrid manufacturing;
providing the processor with parameters for one or more manufacturing instruments that are each capable of performing at least one manufacturing process;
providing the processor with manufacturing capabilities for the one or more manufacturing instruments;
computing, by the processor, manufacturing primitives for each manufacturing instrument of the one or more manufacturing instruments, each manufacturing primitive comprising a shape that is manufacturable through a single manufacturing action that can be performed by the manufacturing instrument;
providing the processor with semantics for interchangeability of an as-manufactured part;
determining, by the processor, whether there exists a union of a subcollection of canonical intersection terms that matches the as-designed part with respect to the semantics for interchangeability, each canonical i

Assignees

• Palo Alto Res Ct Inc

Inventors

• Behandish Morad
• Nelaturi Saigopal
• Dekleer Johan

Classifications

• G05B2219/35204

  Planning, generic process planning · CPC title

• B33Y50/00 Primary

  Data acquisition or data processing for additive manufacturing · CPC title

• B29C64/386

  Data acquisition or data processing for additive manufacturing · CPC title

• G05B2219/31001

  CIM, total factory control · CPC title

• Y02P90/02

  Total factory control, e.g. smart factories, flexible manufacturing systems [FMS] or integrated manufacturing systems [IMS] · CPC title