Robotic sheet forming

Shaping sheet metal into 3D parts by having robot arms press it incrementally, without dedicated dies.

• Conventional stamping presses sheet between matched steel dies that can cost millions of dollars and take months to make.
• Here two robots hold tools on opposite sides of the sheet and deform it in thousands of small passes along a programmed path.
• Changing the part means changing code, so it suits prototypes, low volumes and fast design changes; Machina Labs is a leading example.
• It is much slower per part, and the metal springs back after forming, so software must predict and compensate.