RoboCut Accurately Guides Highly Flexible Tools

(ETH Zurich, September 09, 2020)

A team of ETH computer scientists recently developed a hot-​wire cutter robot, called the RoboCut, with a wire that bends flexibly as it works, thereby allowing it to create much more complex shapes in significantly fewer cuts than previous systems, where the electrically heatable wire is rigid. This is predominantly achieved thanks to a series of complex optimization calculations, which according to Simon Dünser, “are needed to find the most efficient tool paths possible while melting the desired shape from the polystyrene block as precisely as possible." In addition to the fundamental improvement on traditional hot-​wire methods, this novel technology could also be used in architecture to produce individual polystyrene molds for concrete parts, which would enable a more varied design of façades and the development of new types of modular building systems.