Control software for additive manufacturing machine with Multi-material single screw extruder

The result addresses the control software devoted to piloting Additive manufacturing machine with Multi-material single screw extruder for the realisation of personalised Movement Assistive Devices (MADs) The control software is a PC-based application suite and it consists of several software modules cooperating for the control of the whole manufacturing process: oA Rhino-script processing data from Rhinoceros CAD to deliver dedicated MAD CAM has been realized. oAn GUI with HMI functions for governing the various steps for logical sequencing (file import and machine configuration), processing (printing session configuration) and session launch oA logic control module, in charge of performing the handling of machine logic control (auxiliaries system, safety, thermal management) oA Numeric Control kernel of algorithms in charge of the interpolation of six-axes (linear X-Y-Z axes + A-B-C rotary axes) together with the extruder (interpolated as 7th axis) has been totally developed in C/C++ using open LINUX RTAI OS, IGH EtherCAT master.