TY - JOUR
T1 - An ACO-Based Tool-Path Optimizer for 3-D Printing Applications
AU - Fok, Kai Yin
AU - Cheng, Chi Tsun
AU - Ganganath, Nuwan
AU - Iu, Herbert Ho Ching
AU - Tse, Chi K.
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received February 28, 2018; revised November 12, 2018; accepted December 6, 2018. Date of publication December 27, 2018; date of current version April 3, 2019. This work was supported in part by the Department of Electronic and Information Engineering, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, in part by the School of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, The University of Western Australia, and in part by the Department of Manufacturing, Materials and Mechatronics, RMIT University. Paper no. TII-18-0546. (Corresponding author: Kai-Yin Fok.) K.-Y. Fok and C. K. Tse are with the Department of Electronic and Information Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong (e-mail:,[email protected]; [email protected]).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2005-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2019/4
Y1 - 2019/4
N2 - Layered additive manufacturing, also known as three-dimensional (3-D) printing, has revolutionized transitional manufacturing processes. Fabrication of 3-D models with complex structures is now feasible with 3-D printing technologies. By performing careful tool-path optimization, the printing process can be speeded up, while the visual quality of printed objects can be improved simultaneously. The optimization process can be perceived as an undirected rural postman problem (URPP) with multiple constraints. In this paper, a tool-path optimizer is proposed, which further optimizes solutions generated from a slicer software to alleviate visual artifacts in 3-D printing and shortens print time. The proposed optimizer is based on a modified ant colony optimization (ACO), which exploits unique properties in 3-D printing. Experiment results verify that the proposed optimizer can deliver significant improvements in computational time, print time, and visual quality of printed objects over optimizers based on conventional URPP and ACO solvers.
AB - Layered additive manufacturing, also known as three-dimensional (3-D) printing, has revolutionized transitional manufacturing processes. Fabrication of 3-D models with complex structures is now feasible with 3-D printing technologies. By performing careful tool-path optimization, the printing process can be speeded up, while the visual quality of printed objects can be improved simultaneously. The optimization process can be perceived as an undirected rural postman problem (URPP) with multiple constraints. In this paper, a tool-path optimizer is proposed, which further optimizes solutions generated from a slicer software to alleviate visual artifacts in 3-D printing and shortens print time. The proposed optimizer is based on a modified ant colony optimization (ACO), which exploits unique properties in 3-D printing. Experiment results verify that the proposed optimizer can deliver significant improvements in computational time, print time, and visual quality of printed objects over optimizers based on conventional URPP and ACO solvers.
KW - Ant colony optimization (ACO)
KW - arc routing
KW - layered additive manufacturing
KW - rural postman problem
KW - tool-path optimization
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85059285319&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TII.2018.2889740
DO - 10.1109/TII.2018.2889740
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85059285319
SN - 1551-3203
VL - 15
SP - 2277
EP - 2287
JO - IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics
JF - IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics
IS - 4
M1 - 8590761
ER -