Additive Manufacturing 34 (2020) 101173

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Additive Manufacturing
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/addma

Design of a laser control system with continuously variable power and its T
application in additive manufacturing
Tim Phillips*, Trevor Ricker, Scott Fish, Joseph Beaman
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 204 East Dean Keeton Street, Stop C2200, Austin, TX 78712, USA

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Selective laser sintering (SLS) is one of the most popular industrial polymer additive manufacturing processes
Additive manufacturing with applications in aerospace, biomedical, tooling, prototyping, and beyond. SLS is capable of creating unique,
Laser control functional parts with little waste and no tooling by using a high-powered laser to selectively melt powdered
Process control polymer into desired shapes. This process relies heavily on understanding and controlling the thermodynamics of
Surrogate modeling
the polymer melt process. One of the biggest challenges SLS faces is lack of adequate process control, which leads
Powder bed fusion
to comparatively high component variations. It has been shown that implementing more advanced laser control
techniques enable a higher level of control over the processing temperatures and lead to more uniform com-
ponents. Currently, there are no commercial options for a laser power controller that allows continuously
variable power to be used as a galvanometer system adjusts the laser position. This paper will also discuss the
development and implementation of a galvanometer controller solution that works in conjunction with an off-
the-shelf unit to enable this crucial functionality and will present results showing that, when applied to the SLS
process, a 33 % reduction in thermal variation was achieved.

1. Introduction
This paper explores the use of a novel laser controller for improving
performance in selective laser sintering (SLS) additive manufacturing.
The work contained in this paper is a continuation of previous work
that developed a method of controlling laser power is SLS in order to
improve the consistency of components built [1]. This previous effort
was capable of improving temperature uniformity of SLS components
by up to 57 % and strength uniformity by up to 45 %. The im-
plementation presented in that paper, however, was only applicable to
simple shapes with constant cross-sections, such as the flexure speci-
mens presented therein. Since one of the many advantages of additive
manufacturing (AM) is reduced geometric restrictions [2], this limita-
tion is unacceptable for a controller intended to be used in an AM
production environment. As such, this paper will detail a new controller
that applies similar laser power control concepts to complex shapes.
One of the current limitations with laser-based AM is a lack of access
to process variables within commercial laser controllers. These com-
mercial laser controllers synchronize movement of a galvanometer
system with firing of a laser and allow the user to change settings such
as speed and power. Most of these controllers, however, require that
each vector be fully defined with constant parameters before execution.
For example, it is not possible to command the galvanometer system to
move the laser between two points with non-constant laser parameters
and at the time of writing there are no commercial laser controllers that
allow for intra-vector power modulation. The lack of this capability is
detrimental for both researchers and manufacturers, as laser energy and
material processing temperature have been shown to influence
strength, density, and elongation of components built using SLS [1–5].
In Selective Laser Melting AM of metallic components, energy density
has an even wider influence as it can also impact hardness, micro-
structure, and wear properties [6–8].
Previous efforts at controlling laser power and, consequently,
component properties in AM have revolved around discretizing the
powder bed into sections wherein laser parameters are constant [1] or
developing completely custom controllers capable of the desired level
of laser control [9,10]. The former approach poses an issue when a
component spans multiple of these discretized sections, as introducing
step changes to laser power in the interior of a component may have
detrimental effects. The latter approach, which has been implemented
in metal AM, involves recreating much of the functionality already
offered by commercial controllers in order to add the new desired
features and requires the extensive development time, testing, and costs
associated with those tasks. The preferred approach, then, is enable this
crucial intra-vector power control without needing to recreate existing
hardware and software. Enabling this functionality allows for advanced

⁎
Corresponding author.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addma.2020.101173
Received 11 November 2019; Received in revised form 4 February 2020; Accepted 4 March 2020
Available online 22 April 2020
2214-8604/ © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
T. Phillips, et al.
Fig. 1. Example layer scan files and their associated sintering masks for a range of part complexities.
laser control concepts to be implemented in AM machines. Real-time or
model-predictive controllers can be developed to determine optimal
laser parameters based on current system temperature, model geo-
metry, or other factors that influence component quality, and the intra-
vector power controller used to create components in the most optimal
way. This paper will present the design of a supplementary controller
that works with an off-the-shelf controller to enable the laser control
tasks discussed and will present results of using this system in an SLS
machine. Dynamic surrogate modeling is used to analyze machine re-
sponse and predict optimal laser powers to take advantage of the new
laser control functionality. Since this variable has such a large impact
on component quality, the presented method of increasing the con-
trollability of laser power is of significant importance to the AM com-
munity.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. SLS testbed
The controller development and experimentation discussed in this
paper was accomplished on a custom research machine developed at
the University of Texas at Austin. This machine is known as the Laser
Additive Manufacturing Pilot System (LAMPS) and more information
on its development can be found in Fish et al. [11]. LAMPS uses an
Iradion Infinity series CO2 laser with a spot size of approximately 575
μm and nominal maximum output of 40 W. The laser output is con-
trolled with a pulse-width modulated (PWM) signal whose period is
selectable by the user, typically in the range of 50–200 μs. Since the
input signal to the laser is the variable that is directly being controlled
by the system developed in this paper, laser energy will be discussed in
terms of percent, so that 50 % power is nominally 20 W, and a power
difference of 10 % is the change from 50 % output to 40 % output.
LAMPS uses a FLIR A6701 mid-wave infrared (MWIR) camera to
monitor the building process and control powder bed heaters. This
camera provides 640 × 512 pixels images at a rate of 60 Hz. It will also
be used in this paper to provide feedback to a dynamic surrogate sin-
tering model that utilizes the expanded laser control functionality to
improve consistency of test specimens. A second MWIR camera, a FLIR
SC8240, is boresighted with the laser and provides high-speed thermal
data to monitor how the powder bed responds to the laser energy. This
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Additive Manufacturing 34 (2020) 101173
camera provides 64 × 64 pixels images at a rate of 2243 Hz and has a
moving frame of reference that follows the laser spot. All thermal tests
presented in this paper were conducted using ALM PA650, a common
nylon 12 SLS material.
2.2. Proposed control technique
One of the goals of the work presented in this paper is to improve
temperature uniformity on the powder bed of an SLS machine by
modulating laser power to account for pre-existing temperature gra-
dients. This task is an extension of previous work by the authors that
showed dynamic surrogate modeling was capable of predicting optimal
laser powers and that actuating the laser accordingly resulted in sig-
nificant improvements to component uniformity [1]. A shortcoming of
the approach presented in that paper is that it defines a single laser
power for each component, meaning large components that span a
significant temperature gradient on the powder surface must either be
split up or suffer suboptimal performance. This restriction is not ac-
ceptable in AM, where complex components are the norm. Therefore, a
more advanced control system is required that does not place any ad-
ditional restrictions on component geometry. The system must be able
to collect and analyze thermal data from any arbitrary location on the
powder bed, use that information to identify optimal laser parameters,
and then actuate the laser in a continuous fashion using the predicted
optimal values.
Collection of thermal information is done using LAMPS’ FLIR A6701
MWIR camera. The camera is mounted externally of the LAMPS ma-
chine at an angle of 28° from powder bed normal. To interpret the
thermal data, the camera images must be corrected for the viewing
angle and registered so that the thermal image is in a known coordinate
frame. The registration process is done by sintering a known geometry
and using a least-squares perspective transformation to create a trans-
form matrix that brings the infrared images into machine coordinate
space. After an image has been registered, the layer scan files can be
used to identify the sintered regions and extract powder temperatures.
Some example scan files and their associated sintering masks are given
in Fig. 1, showing that the process turns difficult to read scan files into
useable image processing masks for parts of all complexities. An ex-
ample of the temperature extraction process is given in Fig. 2, where
Fig. 2(a) shows the raw thermal image, Fig. 2(b) is the image after it has
T. Phillips, et al. Additive Manufacturing 34 (2020) 101173

Fig. 2. Thermal data extraction process showing (a) the raw thermal image, (b) the same image registered into machine coordinate space, (c) the sintering mask, and
(d) the relevant thermal data for sintered regions.

been registered and brought into machine coordinate space, Fig. 2(c) is
the associated sintering mask, and Fig. 2(d) is the relevant thermal
information for the sintered regions.
The thermal data extraction process takes place at the end of each
layer and the information is used to update laser sintering models. Since
there are some positional dependencies on laser fluence due to the
optical track, a unique sintering model is created for each 1 mm x 1 mm
area on the powder bed. The models contain historical laser power and
measured temperature increase data and every time a location is sin-
tered the new data is added to the governing model. A least squares
approach is used with a forgetting factor of 0.8 to identify a relationship
between applied laser power and expected temperature increase at that
given position that tracks with changes in the machine throughout a
build. Before each layer, a pre-sintering thermal measurement is taken
and compared with a desired post-sintering temperature and the re-
levant thermal models are queried to generate predictions of the op-
timal laser power at each position, examples of which are shown in red
in Fig. 3. Once these sintering models are solved, regression is used to
fit a surface of the form given in Eq. 1 to the optimal laser power so- Fig. 3. Power surface showing the surrogate model solutions in red and the
lutions, consolidating them to give a position-dependent laser power power surface in blue.
surface. An example power surface is shown in blue in Fig. 1. As
highlighted earlier, though, no current off-the-shelf controller would 2.3. Design of laser and galvanometer controller
allow for this power surface to be applied. It is necessary, then, to de-
velop additional laser control hardware to execute these optimal set- Originally, the LAMPS machine used a Cambridge Technologies
tings and improve component quality and consistency. EC1000 to control galvanometer positioning and laser firing. As high-
lighted above, this controller lacks the ability to change laser power
P (x , y ) = α 00 + α10 x + α 01 y + α20 x 2 + α11 xy + α 02 y 2 + α30 x 3 + α21 x 2y after a vector command has been issued and is incapable of changing
+ α12 xy 2 + α 03 y 3 (1) the power within a vector. There are, however, many useful functions
in this controller for governing galvanometer motion and it would be a
lengthy, and likely expensive, task to replicate all of its features. The

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T. Phillips, et al.
Fig. 4. Signal diagrams for (a) the stock EC1000 controller configuration, and (b) the system with the Position-Based Laser Power controller.
signal diagram for the stock EC1000 controller is presented in Fig. 4(a)
and shows that it interprets commands from the host LAMPS computer
and sends the corresponding signals to the galvanometer controller and
laser, synchronizing their timing to ensure proper laser positioning. The
approach considered in this paper is to allow the stock controller to
maintain command over the galvanometer system and implement a
separate, complimentary controller that will take control over the laser
power signal.
The so-called Position-Based Laser Power (PBLP) controller is
placed between the EC1000 and laser and receives the original laser
power signal from the EC1000, real-time position feedback from the
galvanometer controllers, and a mathematical representation of the
desired power surface as inputs. The PBLP controller is housed on a
National Instruments (NI) compactRio (cRIO) system with a Field-
Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), a NI 9205 analog input module, and
a NI 9402 digital input/output module. The NI 9205 module is used to
measure the galvanometer position signal and has an update rate of 4 μs
(8 μs to collect both X and Y signals). The 9402 module has an update
rate of 55 ns and is used to measure the laser power signal and generate
the PWM signal sent to the laser. The new signal diagram for EC1000
with the PBLP is presented in Fig. 4(b).
The galvanometer position signal acquired by the PBLP controller
comes from the capacitive feedback on the galvanometers that is used
in the galvanometer position controller. The signal is continuously
monitored and used to solve a mathematical power surface to de-
termine what the desired power is at the current laser position. The
original laser power signal generated by the EC1000 is used as a trigger
for the PBLP controller, which analyzes the signal to determine if the
laser is supposed to be firing or not firing at any given moment. This
signal is monitored by the FPGA every microsecond and immediately
triggers the PWM output to the laser when the original signal is high,
causing a maximum laser on delay of one microsecond. When the ori-
ginal laser power signal indicates the laser should be off, the PBLP sends
a zero signal on the next PWM period, causing a maximum off delay of
one period, depending on when the laser off signal was received in the
PBLP PWM cycle. This signal structure allows the PBLP controller to
have no knowledge of the scan path, yet still actuate the laser at the
correct time intervals and allows the EC1000 to maintain full control
over positioning and timing of the system. In the testing presented
herein, a 3rd order surface is used to describe desired laser power across
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Additive Manufacturing 34 (2020) 101173
the powder surface. The time it takes for the FPGA to solve the surface
equation is significantly faster than the selected laser duty cycle period
of 100 μs, meaning the commanded laser PWM should closely match
the power surface solution at the current galvanometer position.
2.4. Evaluation of the laser controller
After implementing the PBLP on a NI cRIO, static and dynamic tests
were performed to validate the output of the controller. First, a static
position calibration was conducted to map the analog voltage feedback
signal from the galvanometers to Cartesian coordinates on the powder
bed. This calibration was done by commanding the galvanometer to
different, known positions across the powder bed and recording the
signal measured by the AI/O module in the PBLP. The powder bed was
sampled in 5 mm increments across the entirety of its surface. Spot-
checking showed that there was no cross talk between the voltage
signals from the two galvanometers, so it was not necessary to take
measurements over the entire position matrix, just over the individual
position arrays. While this process does not calibrate the absolute po-
sition of the laser on the powder bed, it ensures the PBLP and EC1000
have the same reference frame. Since the stock EC1000 has full control
over galvanometer position, adding the PBLP to the laser control system
will not have any negative impact on the absolute positioning of the
laser.
After position calibration, dynamic testing was performed by scan-
ning the laser across the powder bed at different speeds while applying
a known power map to the PBLP. The actual output of the laser control
system was compared with the power defined by the power surface.
These dynamic tests consisted of 50 mm vectors that linearly increased
the desired laser power from 10 % at the beginning to 90 % at the end
of each vector. Laser speed was varied from 500 mm/s to 5500 mm/s in
1000 mm/s increments. Galvanometer position feedback and laser
power output by the PBLP were recorded every 89 μsec.
A second dynamic test was performed by driving LAMPS’ 40 W CO2
laser with the PBLP and directing the galvanometers onto a piece of
Mylar as it scans a test pattern while varying the laser power. Mylar is
commonly used in laser calibration as it changes from black to varying
levels of gray as it is exposed to higher laser energy levels and was used
here to give a visual indication of how the laser power was being
modulated. The test pattern, shown in Fig. 5(a), consists of continuous
T. Phillips, et al.
Fig. 5. PBLP test showing the (a) laser scan and (b) laser power surface.
lines oriented horizontally, perpendicularly, +45°, and −45° spaced 5
mm apart over the span of a 40 mm x 40 mm rectangle. Prior testing
showed that 30 % laser power is the threshold for marking this Mylar
material and powers above 46 % were visibly indistinguishable.
Therefore, laser power was constrained in this test to be between those
two values so that results could be observed with a naked eye. The
power surface started at 46 % power in the upper right corner at x = 20
mm, y = 20 mm and varied linearly to 30 % power in the lower left
corner at x= −20 mm, y= −20 mm, as depicted in Fig. 5(b).
2.5. Evaluation of laser controller in selective laser sintering
A potential software solution to overcome lack of intra-vector power
control is to subdivide each vector into discrete sections with constant
power. This approach would allow the power to be changed while
scanning a vector on the interior of a component without needing ad-
ditional hardware, such as the PBLP presented. However, this technique
has its drawbacks, as each power change instance will require the
galvanometers to come to a physical stop before the new power setting
can be applied. The stop event is not caused by a limitation in the
galvanometer hardware, but is a constraint imposed by the currently
available galvanometer control software. Implications of this approach
are explored by using LAMPS to evaluate the temperature increase
along a series of vectors with varying power section granularity. Testing
consisted of scanning 50 mm vectors while varying the laser power
from 10 % to 90 % of the maximum laser output using power steps of 10
%, 5 %, and 1 % of the laser output. The FLIR SC8240 high speed MWIR
camera was used to record the temperature on the powder bed and
thermal results from this testing were compared with those produced by
the PBLP given the same control task.
Further testing of the PBLP system was performed by utilizing the
laser control technique described in Section 2.2 to complete an entire
SLS build and comparing temperature uniformity results with a similar
build performed using a constant laser power. During the PBLP build,
the coefficients of the power surface predicted by the surrogate models
are sent to the PBLP controller and used to dynamically vary the laser
power. All other machine parameters were kept constant between the
two builds, which consisted of 49 identical components each. The
components were shaped like miniature I-beams with a 10 mm x 10 mm
footprint with 10 mm height. The full dimensions and arrangement can
be seen in Fig. 6. Thermal image data was recorded throughout the
entirety of the build process using the FLIR A6701 MWIR camera and
was used to compare the two control techniques.
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Additive Manufacturing 34 (2020) 101173
3. Results and discussion
3.1. PBLP bench testing
Static testing of the galvanometer position feedback signals revealed
that the voltage signal obtained is highly linear with the commanded
position, allowing a simple linear equation to fully define their re-
lationship. The data and fit statistics are given in Fig. 7.
Dynamic bench testing of the PBLP system showed that there was a
small amount of error that scaled with the scanning speed of the gal-
vanometers, where the power output lagged behind the value defined
by the power surface. Fig. 8 presents actual laser output as a function of
position, where the black dashed line is the profile defined by the power
surface. The galvanometer was scanning in the positive direction during
this trial so that the position and power output are increasing with time.
The solid colored lines show the power signal generated by the PBLP as
the galvanometer scans the vector at different speeds. As the galvan-
ometer speed increases, more deviation from the ideal power profile is
observed. The amount of error is relatively constant for each galvan-
ometer speed regardless of commanded power, indicating the error is
caused by delay in acquiring galvanometer position and solving the
power profile. The error is quantified in Fig. 9, where it is plotted
against the rate of change in the commanded power output defined as:
∂P dx ∂P dy
∇P = +
∂x dt ∂y dt
Preliminary investigation of the PBLP system inside a SLS machine
showed that the laser was capable of intra-vector power modulation
when scanned across a piece of Mylar in the test pattern described in
Fig. 5. The resulting Mylar sheet is seen in Fig. 10, where it is clear that
the intensity of the vectors vary in a way consistent with the power
pattern in Fig. 5(b). No considerations were made in the test pattern
where the laser vectors intersect, resulting in more energy deposited in
those areas that cause the bright spots on the Mylar sheet. This initial
test indicates that the PBLP controller works as expected and it is ap-
propriate to move on to the next tests to quantify the effects of the PBLP
system and its effect on powder temperature.
3.2. Results of selective laser sintering implementation
Typical laser scanning speeds in the LAMPS SLS machine are on the
order of 1500 mm/s, making the error introduced by the PBLP system
on the lower end of the numbers presented in Fig. 9. Additionally, the
period of the laser PWM signal was chosen to be 100 μs with resolution
of 1 μs, meaning laser power is only capable of changing in 1 % in-
crements and any error within 0.5 % of the desired value is rounded
out.
T. Phillips, et al. Additive Manufacturing 34 (2020) 101173

Fig. 6. Dimensions of (a) SLS test part and (b) their arrangement within the build chamber, dimensions in mm.

Fig. 9. PBLP power output error.

Fig. 7. Static galvanometer position calibration.

Comparing results of the PBLP controller against those obtained by

Fig. 8. Power as a function of position for different galvanometer speeds.
the software-only solution of sectioning vectors showed multiple ad-
vantages when using the new controller. Fig. 11 presents the tem-
perature increase measured on the powder surface for different sub-
section granularities, where the solid blue line is the measured
temperature, the dashed blue line is a linear fit to the data, and the
expected temperature range is highlighted in yellow. As expected,
coarse steps in power result in a noticeable stair-stepping effect rather
than the intended linear increase. At small subsection sizes, such as 1%
increments presented in Fig. 11(c), the stair-stepping is no longer ap-
parent, but the temperature increase does not match well with the
predicted values. At this setting, the temperature increase was incon-
sistent between trials, resulting in the large deviations from the linear
fit seen in Fig. 11(c). In addition, the temperatures measured are higher
than expected due to the accumulation of end-of-vector effects where
the galvanometer is accelerating or decelerating and inputting more
energy at the subsection interfaces. The presence of these acceleration
regions is also evidenced by the fact that the 1 % incremented vector
took 25 % longer than the same vector without sectioning. The PBLP
single vector results, seen in Fig. 11(d), show good agreement with the
predicted temperature increase and did not slow down the sintering

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T. Phillips, et al. Additive Manufacturing 34 (2020) 101173

layer build showed drastic improvements in temperature uniformity

Fig. 10. Results of Mylar PBLP testing.
process. This controller, then, is superior to a software-only solution in
terms of accuracy, repeatability, and speed.
Evaluation of the PBLP and feed-forward control system for a 100-
when compared to an open-loop build. The IR images collected during
each layer were analyzed to determine the post-sintering temperature
within each component by averaging the relevant IR image pixels. The
resulting layer-wise post-sintering temperatures of both builds for
components at the corners and center of the I-beam tests are given in
Fig. 12. To compare the proposed control system with the industry-
standard fixed-power build strategy, range and standard deviation were
computed on each layer for the two build strategies using the layer-wise
component temperatures. Once the layer-wise range and standard de-
viation values were calculated, a comparison could be made by de-
termining the percent change in those values on each layer when using
the proposed control strategy. Fig. 13 shows the percent reduction in
layer-wise temperature range and standard deviation among all 49
components when using the proposed control system compared with
the same build that used a fixed laser power. There are some undesir-
able results during the first 4 layers of the build, where the thermal
results show both positive and negative effects of the controller. The
likely source of these oscillations is initialization of the surrogate
models, which were initialized with only a single data point indicating
the lower laser threshold. The first layer of the PBLP build used a pre-
determined fixed laser power to provide a second data point in the
sintering models and at layer two, the feed-forward surrogate model
approach took over in predicting the optimal laser powers. If the in-
itialization stage were extended so that a few more layers were sintered
with the pre-determined laser power, the results would likely be im-
proved when the laser power controller took over due to the increase in
thermal data available when making the laser power predictions. An-
other dip in performance is found on layer 83 that caused the standard

Fig. 11. Temperature increase comparison of different laser control strategies, showing the idealized result in yellow and results when using (a) 10 % increments, (b)
5 % increments, (c) 1 % increments, and (d) The Position-Based Laser Power controller.

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T. Phillips, et al.
Fig. 12. Results of I-Beam build showing the layer-wise post-sintering temperature for 5 component locations on (a) the baseline fixed-power build and (b) the laser
power controlled build.
Fig. 13. Improvement in temperature uniformity when using the PBLP and
feed-forward control system.
deviation of post-sintering temperatures to be worse than that of the
baseline test, though the range was still improved. It is unclear what
caused this temperature drop, but the control system self-corrected and
quickly brought the post-sintering temperature standard deviation back
within the desired range.
Layer 70 presents the transition from the skinny section of the I-
beam back to the full section. This step geometry change creates un-
supported overhangs in the components where material is now being
lased above un-sintered powder. These features typically cause concern
in SLS systems because the thermodynamics of the sintering process are
different when lasing on top of powder vs previously melted material.
The thermal data in Fig. 12 show that both the fixed power and PBLP
builds have a sharp drop in temperature at layer 70 due to these
overhangs. The temperatures experienced by the PBLP build, however,
are closer to the desired building temperature (468 K, in this case) than
those experienced by the fixed power test. Additionally, the percent
improvement in temperature uniformity presented in Fig. 13 shows that
at layer 70, the range and standard deviation of temperatures are ap-
proximately 60 % smaller during the PBLP build, indicating the con-
troller presented is superior for building these features. Taking the
average of the reduction in post-sintering temperature range and
standard deviation across all layers yields overall performance metrics
of 52 % and 33 % improvement, showing the laser power controller
creates significantly more uniform components.
4. Conclusions
This paper presented a novel solution to enable intra-vector power
modulation capabilities using off-the-shelf components. A supplemen-
tary controller, called the Position-Based Laser Power controller, in-
tercepts the laser power signal generated by a commercial laser and
galvanometer control system and modifies the signal before passing it
to the laser. The laser signal can be modified according to a parametric
surface so that the new laser power signal is a function of galvanometer
position. Benchtop testing showed this technique had acceptably small
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Additive Manufacturing 34 (2020) 101173
error when used under conditions typical to Selective Laser Sintering
and was faster and more accurate than a software-only solution.
The PBLP controller was combined with a previously developed
feed-forward laser power control strategy and installed on a research
SLS machine. Evaluation of the laser control system showed drastic
improvements over open-loop control systems, where standard devia-
tion of component temperatures was reduced by 33 %. Previous studies
of flexure specimens showed that this type of improvement in tem-
perature uniformity yields similar improvements in component strength
uniformity [1]. The addition of the PBLP controller allows the feed-
forward technique to be applied to more complex components, im-
proving the likelihood of creating consistently high-quality parts. The
self-contained nature of the controller presented should allow for ret-
rofitting commercial machines with the laser control features pre-
sented, increasing their performance.
A few avenues of future work have been identified that may im-
prove the performance of the control system presented. Since the sur-
rogate models track which areas of the powder bed are sintered on each
layer, it may be possible for the system to identify when an overhang is
being created and adjust the laser power to account for the different
build dynamics in that location to improve temperature uniformity.
Decreasing the thermal fluctuations on the first few layers of a build is
also important and may be as simple as pre-initializing the thermal
models prior to building any critical components. Lastly, it may be
possible to improve the way desired post-sintering temperature is se-
lected. Currently, design of experiments testing and destructive mea-
surements are used to empirically find this value, but a model may
provide superior results. It is also possible that such a model would
specify a non-constant desired temperature dependent on component
geometry, which could be incorporated into the PBLP system. Overall,
the controller presented in this paper shows promise at improving the
quality of components built using SLS. As poor repeatability is a com-
monly cited downside of additive manufacturing, this control system
has the potential to improve the utility and confidence in SLS and en-
able new capabilities for researchers and manufacturers alike.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Tim Phillips: Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing,
Software, Validation, Investigation, Conceptualization. Trevor Ricker:
Conceptualization, Methodology. Scott Fish: Supervision. Joseph
Beaman: Supervision, Funding acquisition.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
T. Phillips, et al.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the instrumental research
support of the US Department of Defense (DoD)Air Force Research
Laboratory (AFRL)Project # FA8650-17-C5716 P00003: Laser Additive
Manufacturing Pilot Scale (LAMPS) III: Advanced Process Monitoring
and Control (PI: Scott Fish).
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