Tele-Control of Rapid Prototyping Machine System Via Internet

인터넷 기반의 원격 제어를 이용한 RP 시스템 개발

Nowadays, increasing demand of the customized products has led to an increased usage of rapid prototyping in the product development. However, the acquisition price of a rapid prototyping equipment is still too high that not every body can afford to buy one. To offer a wide access to the users who need physical prototypes, a connection of the rapid prototyping equipment to the Internet is a viable step. It would allow a large group of customers all over the world to use the manufacturing capability of a service provider offering this kind of manufacturing service. To realize how such an e-manufacturing concept can look like, a LOM-type 3D printer developed at KIST has been used as test site and connected to the Internet. A possible user can log on to the server of the equipment and view his STL file and start the building operation from a remote place. To see whether the operation runs properly, a CCD camera is used to transmit the actual state of operation online. The result so far proves the feasibility of rapid prototyping on the Internet as well as an order-adaptive manufacturing system via web.