![]() By utilizing thousands of nozzles to deposit tiny droplets of resin that are UV-cured, MultiFab enabled high-resolution 3D printing with up to 10 materials at once. ![]() This paper builds off a low-cost, multimaterial 3D printer known as MultiFab that the researchers introduced in 2015. He is joined on the paper by lead author Thomas Buchner, a doctoral student at ETH Zurich, co-corresponding author Robert Katzschmann PhD ’18, assistant professor of robotics who leads the Soft Robotics Laboratory at ETH Zurich as well as others at ETH Zurich and Inkbit. This is almost like endowing a printer with a set of eyes and a brain, where the eyes observe what is being printed, and then the brain of the machine directs it as to what should be printed next,” says co-corresponding author Wojciech Matusik, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT who leads the Computational Design and Fabrication Group within the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). “Our key insight here was to develop a machine-vision system and completely active feedback loop. For example, they made a completely 3D-printed robotic gripper shaped like a human hand and controlled by a set of reinforced, yet flexible, tendons. The researchers used this printer to create complex, robotic devices that combine soft and rigid materials. In addition, the automatic system makes adjustments without stopping or slowing the printing process, making this production-grade printer about 660 times faster than a comparable 3D inkjet printing system. Some slower-curing material chemistries can offer improved performance over acrylates, such as greater elasticity, durability, or longevity. Since it does not require mechanical parts to smooth the resin, this contactless system works with materials that cure more slowly than the acrylates which are traditionally used in 3D printing. Their printer utilizes computer vision to automatically scan the 3D printing surface and adjust the amount of resin each nozzle deposits in real-time to ensure no areas have too much or too little material. Researchers from MIT, the MIT spinout Inkbit, and ETH Zurich have developed a new 3D inkjet printing system that works with a much wider range of materials. But the smoothing process could squish or smear resins that cure slowly, limiting the types of materials that can be used. These multimaterial 3D printing systems utilize thousands of nozzles to deposit tiny droplets of resin, which are smoothed with a scraper or roller and cured with UV light. With 3D inkjet printing systems, engineers can fabricate hybrid structures that have soft and rigid components, like robotic grippers that are strong enough to grasp heavy objects but soft enough to interact safely with humans.
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