Computer-aided manufacturing of laminated engineering material (CAM-LEM) is a form of solid freeform fabrication involving feeding, cutting and stacking of sheet materials to form 3D objects. To improve build rates and surface finish, it is desired to cut layers of an object from relatively thick sheets with consideration of tangent angles about each layer's perimeter. Design of the cutting system is key to the success of this approach, since speed and accuracy must be high. This paper describes the evolution of our laser-cutting system from a 5-axis design with stationary optics to a 4-axis design with articulated optics. Detailed analysis and characterization of the competing designs shows that the 4-axis design offers an improvement in both speed and precision.
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