The future of 3D printing utilizing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) presents a promising capability to revolutionize manufacturing and to enable the creation of large-scale structures in remote and hard- to-reach areas e.g. in other planetary systems. Nevertheless, the limited payload capacity of UAVs and the complexity in the 3D printing of large objects pose significant challenges. In this article we propose a novel chunk-based framework for distributed 3D printing using UAVs that sets the basis for a fully collaborative aerial 3D printing of challenging structures. The presented framework, through a novel proposed optimisation process, is able to divide the 3D model to be printed into small, manageable chunks and to assign them to a UAV for partial printing of the assigned chunk, in a fully autonomous approach. Thus, we establish the algorithms for chunk division, allocation, and printing, and we also introduce a novel algorithm that efficiently partitions the mesh into planar chunks, while accounting for the inter-connectivity constraints of the chunks. The efficiency of the proposed framework is demonstrated through multiple physics based simulations in Gazebo, where a CAD construction mesh is printed via multiple UAVs carrying materials whose volume is proportionate to a fraction of the total mesh volume.

翻译：利用无人飞行器（UAV）进行三维打印的未来展现出革命性制造能力的前景，并可在偏远及难以到达区域（例如其他行星系统）构建大规模结构。然而，UAV有限的载荷能力以及大型物体三维打印的复杂性构成重大挑战。本文提出一种基于分块的新型分布式UAV三维打印框架，为通过完全协作式空中三维打印实现复杂结构奠定基础。该框架通过一种新颖的优化过程，能够将待打印的三维模型划分为多个小型可管理区块，并以全自主方式将区块分配给UAV进行局部打印。由此，我们建立了区块划分、分配与打印的算法，同时引入了一种创新算法，可在考虑区块互连约束的前提下，高效地将网格划分为平面区块。通过Gazebo中基于物理的多重仿真验证了该框架的有效性：采用多架携带材料体积与总网格体积成比例的UAV，对CAD建筑网格进行了打印。