Increasing deposition height stability in robotic GTA additive manufacturing based on arc voltage sensing and control

Abstract

Abstract Robotic gas tungsten arc (GTA)-based additive manufacturing (AM) is a promising technique to produce high-quality and large-scale metal parts with low cost. Despite this fact, the key issue of ensuring deposition height stability has not been fully solved. In this study, an arc voltage sensing and control approach with little delay is proposed to increase the forming height stability in GTA-based AM. The deposition height stability is indirectly characterized by arc voltage signals sampled using a designed arc voltage detection system. A novel de-noising method, combining the anti-impulse interference moving average with the wavelet packet transform, is proposed to filter out interferences in the original arc voltage. A Fuzzy-PID controller is developed to control the arc voltage by adjusting the wire feed speed on next deposition layer. Constant parameter and closed-loop control experiments are compared via fabricating thin-walled parts. The more stable arc voltage and more excellent forming appearance in the closed-loop control test indicate that applying the arc voltage sensing and control system can greatly improve the forming height stability in robotic GTA-based AM.