Flexible Multi-DoF Aerial 3D Printing Supported with Automated Optimal Chunking

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel autonomous multi-UAV framework for large-scale 3D printing that divides complex models into manageable chunks, optimally allocates them, and enables collaborative aerial construction in challenging environments.

Contribution

It presents a new chunk-based distributed 3D printing framework with algorithms for mesh partitioning, chunk allocation, and multi-UAV coordination, advancing autonomous aerial manufacturing capabilities.

Findings

Framework successfully partitions models into planar chunks.

Simulations demonstrate effective multi-UAV collaborative printing.

Optimized chunk allocation improves printing efficiency.

Abstract

The future of 3D printing utilizing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) presents a promising capability to revolutionize manufacturing and to enable the creation of large-scale structures in remote and hard- to-reach areas e.g. in other planetary systems. Nevertheless, the limited payload capacity of UAVs and the complexity in the 3D printing of large objects pose significant challenges. In this article we propose a novel chunk-based framework for distributed 3D printing using UAVs that sets the basis for a fully collaborative aerial 3D printing of challenging structures. The presented framework, through a novel proposed optimisation process, is able to divide the 3D model to be printed into small, manageable chunks and to assign them to a UAV for partial printing of the assigned chunk, in a fully autonomous approach. Thus, we establish the algorithms for chunk division, allocation, and printing, and we also introduce a novel algorithm that efficiently partitions the mesh into planar chunks, while accounting for the inter-connectivity constraints of the chunks. The efficiency of the proposed framework is demonstrated through multiple physics based simulations in Gazebo, where a CAD construction mesh is printed via multiple UAVs carrying materials whose volume is proportionate to a fraction of the total mesh volume.