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The Challenge
To realize the vision of cooperative 3D printing, we needed a printer that wasn't confined to a box. The challenge was to build a mobile robot capable of carrying a printhead and moving freely across a shared floor space (Cartesian system) with high precision, enabling it to work alongside other robots on indefinite build volumes.
The first iteration of the mobile unit, featuring omnidirectional wheels.
The Engineering
I developed two revisions of the robot hardware, including custom control circuit boards, the mechanical enclosure, and the firmware. I adapted the open-source Marlin firmware to support omnidirectional wheels for holonomic X-Y movement and implemented a closed-loop control system using optical sensors to track the robot's precise displacement on the floor.
An illustration of the scalable "swarm" concept, enabling indefinite build volumes through multi-robot cooperation.
The custom-designed embedded system controlling the omnidirectional drive and extrusion hardware.
The Impact
I built two working prototypes that successfully demonstrated the concept of mobile manufacturing. The design was recognized at the international 3D Pioneers Challenge in Germany, receiving a special mention from Autodesk, and resulted in a patent and a published paper.
Two mobile robots demonstrating precise multi-agent coordination on a shared build surface.
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