aiPRINT

In Brief

• Challenge: Future Digital Challenge
• Challenge Type: National Challenge Fund
• Status: Active

The Challenge

Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, promises faster and more flexible ways of making the things we need with less waste. Identifying material processing parameters for 3D printing requires extensive trial-and-error, which is costly and time-consuming. This is due to the open-loop nature of existing 3D printing technology, which does not enable live digital monitoring of process outputs. As a result, current 3D printing technology is not capable of learning and adapting to new materials and demands.   

The Solution

aiPRINT will develop 3D printers with integrated computer vision that can ‘watch’ the printing process in real time and converge on optimised print control parameters using reinforced learning. The development of smart 3D printers informed by AI will accelerate digitalisation of 3D printing pipelines, which so far still rely on trial-and-error approaches to material optimization. The platform will enable automated optimization of print control parameters along with live corrections of print imprecisions.