ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,459,202, issued on Nov. 4, was assigned to 3D SYSTEMS INC. (Rock Hill, S.C.).
"Flow rate control in extrusion deposition process" was invented by Andrew John Stewart Edwards (North Somerset, Great Britain) and Frank A. McKiel Jr. (Colorado Springs, Colo.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In the context of additively manufacturing a solid object using extrusion deposition, closed-loop control of flow rate is achieved using a distance measuring tool to scan a surface of a layer that has been deposited using a first flow rate, comparing data from the scan to a desired target value and using a control algorithm to calculate a corrected second fl...