Robotic Aerosol Jet Printing of Conformal Microscale Circuits with In-situ Laser Sintering

doi:10.3901/JME.260086

Abstract

Abstract: Conformal electronics on curved surfaces offer unique advantages in achieving multifunctionality and high integration of electronic devices by directly adhering to target substrates, demonstrating significant potential value in fields such as wearable electronics, biomedical devices, and aerospace engineering. To systematically address the challenges of poor printing flexibility, low printing accuracy, and post-processing limitations in the fabrication of conformal microscale circuits on complex curved surfaces, this study proposes an integrated manufacturing method combining multi-degree-of-freedom aerosol jet printing and in-situ laser sintering based on a six-axis robotic arm. The robotic arm is equipped with an aerosol jet printing module and an infrared laser sintering unit, and a multi-threaded control architecture is developed to enable flexible path planning and synchronous control of printing parameters. To achieve uniform sintering of aerosol jet printed conformal microscale circuits on curved surfaces, a multi-degree-of-freedom conformal in-situ laser sintering methodology is proposed, yielding optimized laser sintering process parameters. This enables high-precision printing and high-conductivity sintering of conformal circuits on surfaces with curvature variations of 25~100 m^-1 and a large area of 400 mm×190 mm. The circuit line width is less than 50 μm, and the electrical resistivity is as low as 6.53×10^-8 Ω·m. Furthermore, the proposed integrated process is validated to be compatible with polymer substrates with heat deflection temperatures ranging from 60 ℃ to 360 ℃. The study has successfully achieved direct manufacturing of conformal conductive circuits on a spatial double-helix surface across a wide inclination angle range of -20° to +30°, and also realized 8-channel conformal thermal sensor circuits on a curved blade model surface. This study overcomes key technical bottlenecks in the flexibility and functionality of conformal microcircuit manufacturing on complex curved surfaces, providing an efficient and reliable solution for the rapid fabrication of conformal electronic systems.

Key words: conformal circuits, aerosol jet printing, laser sintering, robotic printing, microscale circuits

CLC Number:

TH164

DING Yi, XU Chenyu, HE Jiankang, YUE Junyu, YU Kun, LI Jiaxin, HUO Ziyao, LI Dichen. Robotic Aerosol Jet Printing of Conformal Microscale Circuits with In-situ Laser Sintering[J]. Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2026, 62(3): 282-297.

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