Data-Driven Additive Manufacturing for Highly-Regulated Industries - DAEDALUS
By enabling Additive Manufacturing (AM) parts in highly regulated sectors, DAEDALUS will help make the UK the place to manufacture the products that will drive the future of the world, addressing the UK Grand Challenges \[1\] (future electric aircraft for urban mobility and clean growth, and medical devices for ageing society).The adoption of AM in these sectors (e.g. aerospace, space, oil & gas and medical) is hindered by part quality issues, process repeatability and reliability, traceability, scalability and limited availability of AM standards. These challenges are inherently linked to the ability to generate (sampling); capture (in-process monitoring); process (signal processing); store (data architectures); structure (data schemas and standards); manage (traceability provision); analyse (data correlation and insights) and share (manual data, different platforms) highly complex data across the AM process chain (i.e. powder management, build process and post-processing) and the supply chain. Therefore, digital manufacturing is a key enabler and solution, which is the core objective of DAEDALUS.DAEDALUS is aiming at developing a novel solution, with a combination of IDTs (AM, IIoT/Connectivity, AI/analytics) to build the digital thread and analytics solutions to enable AM adoption and scale-up and accelerate qualification of AM parts in highly regulated sectors.**AM Digital Thread:** Development of single, traceable, digital thread and its flexible integration of facility/production management systems to streamline, standardise and digitalise best practices across the AM supply chain focusing on powder management, process and post-process optimisation.**AM Intelligence:** Development of AI-enabled solutions for material and process control and stability through the utilisation of materials, sensor and in-process monitoring data.This solution will be demonstrated for three steps of the AM process chain individually (powder management, build process, machining) in a combination of pre-production and industrial environments. The final demonstrator will be a digitally integrated AM supply chain: a secure collaborative, intelligent and independent platform whereby reliable AM raw material and product traceability data can be shared securely between AM supply chain partners.The final solution is intended to generate game-changing improvements in operational efficiency, including yield, material cost and lead-times. The solution will also make a radical improvement in qualification and certification times for the AM supply chain. As a result, significant improvements in time to market are also expected.DAEDALUS will influence the future of manufacturing, by anchoring light-weighting, electrification, customised medical implants and devices in the UK supply chain and help invigorating the associated digital tech ecosystem.