A modular flexible scalable and reconfigurable system for manufacturing of Microsystems based on additive manufacturing and e-printing

Digital manufacturing technologies [1] are gaining more and more importance as key enabling technologies in future manufacturing, especially when a flexible scalable manufacturing of small medium series of customized parts is required. The paper describes a new approach for design manufacturing of complex three dimensional components building on a combination of digital manufacturing technologies such as laminated objects manufacturing, laser and e-printing technologies. The micro component is made up of stacks of functionalized layers of polymer films. The concept is currently developed further in the project SMARTLAM [2,3], funded by the European Commission. The manufacturing system is based on a flexible, scalable and modular equipment and application features approach which enables the manufacturing of different small size batches without tool or mask making in short time. Different modules can be combined by defined hardware and software interfaces. Avoiding time consumable and difficult programming caused by manufacturing a new conceptual approach a Function-Block Runtime (FORTE) executes generated control application platform-independently and coordinates component module functionalities. The control system is designed to integrate all processes as well as the base platform with features far beyond ordinary PLC systems. One aspect is the use of process data out of the data acquisition system to simulate and optimize the processes. These results are incorporated into the main machine control system. Another aspect is the vision system for flexible quality control and closed-loop positioning control with visual servoing. The paper shows the overall concept of SMARTLAM and exemplarily demonstrates the control system as well as the modular equipment approach by the example of the control system for alignment of different stacks and inspection system