The Korea Electronics Technology Institute (KETI, President Shin Hee-dong) is producing core metal 3D printing software domestically, and this is expected to enhance the competitiveness of domestic metal 3D printers in the future.

KETI announced on the 20th that it has succeeded in developing software (SW) to improve metal 3D printing manufacturing quality.

Metal 3D printing creates the desired product by laying out metal powder flat and selectively shooting a high-temperature laser to melt and solidify it.

This time, the software developed by KETI contributed to improving the stability of metal 3D printing output quality by localizing the tool path and output code generation functions that had previously been dependent on foreign products.

Additionally, the research team reflected many opinions from metal 3D printing process experts in industrial fields and focused on increasing workers' freedom in creating and editing tool paths.

Until now, software responsible for generating metal 3D printing tool paths and output codes has been dependent on overseas sources such as the US and Europe, which has limited the development of processes, such as the software's output code being encrypted and making it impossible to collect process data.

Shin Hwa-seon, KETI Intelligent Convergence SW Research Center, who led the developmentAccording to the researcher, by localizing the tool path generation and output code control functions that were previously closed in foreign software, it has become possible to collect data for process monitoring and modify process parameters (variables) tailored to the characteristics of domestic equipment.

In addition, this software was developed by actively incorporating the opinions of 3D printing process experts working in actual industrial sites, and includes many core functions practically necessary for process stabilization, such as the ability to manually edit tool paths and the ability to generate tool paths with different parameters for each area after dividing the laminated cross-section.

KETI President Shin Hee-dong said, “Through technological development, we have overcome the limitations of metal 3D printing software led by advanced countries overseas, and implemented the ideas of domestic process experts into actual process know-how.” He added, “KETI will continue to secure process autonomy in the metal 3D printing field in the future and contribute to enhancing the competitiveness of the domestic manufacturing industry.”

Meanwhile, this technology was developed through the 'Industrial 3D Printer-mounted Additive Manufacturing Controller SW Technology Development' project supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT since 2020.