Predictive control for direct metal deposition Available to Purchase

Direct metal deposition plays an important role in rapid manufacturing industry to fabricate geometrically complicated, dense, near-net-shape components. A large number of parameters are involved in the deposition process. Its present development stagnates in its control. A good understanding of the laser material processing and a well designed controlling system are essential for the system reliability. This paper addresses the development of a linear model based generalized predictive control system for direct metal deposition. The molten pool temperature during the direct metal deposition process was monitored by a two-colour pyrometer. A single-input single-output linear system that describes the dynamics between the molten pool temperature and the laser power was considered. The incremental generalized predictive control algorithm with Kalman filter estimation was used to control the molten pool temperature. The performance of the controller was compared with the on-off controller.