A uniform laser energy density controller for the rapid prototype processing

Abstract

Rapid prototyping has become popular nowadays as the lifecycles of commercial and consumer products have been shortened to quarters or even months. The rapid prototyping technology provides a modern way to examine rapid contour changes on products which have forced designers and manufacturers to make new designs, jigs, tools, and molds in the past. Unlike the traditional machining of material, rapid prototyping utilizes technologies, such as stacking, etching, and laser processing, to produce models of designed articles within time and cost limits. Algorithms to control the processing are required and important to the success of rapid prototyping. This study has focused on laser energy control for the processing of Ceramic Laser Sintering rapid prototyping which will sinter ceramic powders into a solid object. Instead of the open‐loop constant laser energy applied in current laser machining, to improve the quality of the prototyping, a uniform laser energy algorithm and controller is developed and tested. The controller can automatically adjust the laser energy applied according to the distance traveled with position feedback. The developed method has been implemented on an embedded DSP microprocessor and CPLD controller to demonstrate its applicability. The experimental data has shown that consistent laser processing quality can be achieved with proper uniform laser energy control, which implies the feasibility of applying this developed uniform laser energy control algorithm to Ceramic Laser Sintering rapid prototyping processing.