CAD and Control Technologies for Computer-Aided Manufacturing of Laminated Engineering Materials

This paper presents recent progress in software, material handling and tangent-cutting control in support of Computer-Aided Manufacturing of Laminated Engineering Materials(CAM-LEM). Progress in CAD focuses on the definition of a new layered file format for describing 3-D solids in terms of thick slabs with ruled-surface edges. For material handling, we present new algorithms for automatic generation of mask hole patterns used in selective-area vacuum gripping, which is required for our laminated assembly process. Finally, we present recent results of object fabrication using thick-slab, tangent-cut layers