The South-West based technology specialist’s team of developers have leveraged the power of artificial intelligence to optimise solutions for customers printing complex components for the automotive, aerospace, construction, medical and military sectors.

Rapid Fusion has unveiled a new AI ‘print assistant' that will help enhance the performance of its groundbreaking robotic additive manufacturing systems.

The South-West based technology specialist's team of developers have leveraged the power of artificial intelligence to optimise solutions for customers printing complex components for the automotive, aerospace, construction, medical and military sectors.

After eight months of coding, troubleshooting and various live tests, ‘Bob (Base of Build)' is now being rolled out to existing clients and is promising to optimise its robots by making them easier to use, providing greater operator control and ensuring less downtime through preventative maintenance.

The pre-loaded knowledge bank, anticipated to be one of the largest collections of 3D printing expertise ever created, works in both secure online/cloud-connected and offline/air-gapped configurations for military or IP-sensitive clients.

This works with Rapid Fusion's existing models like Apollo and Zeus and for its most recent system Medusa, the first UK-built large format hybrid 3D gantry printer.

"There is a lot of talk about how AI can transform the business world and numerous companies are jumping on the bandwagon," explained Martin Jewell, Chief Technology Officer at Rapid Fusion.

"It's something we've been aware of from day one and all of our robotic additive manufacturing systems have been built so that we can use artificial intelligence to unleash the full potential of our technology."

He continued: "Having our own AI ‘print assistant' is a gamechanger and will cut machine downtime and boost efficiency. We're teaching our systems to understand challenges and different scenarios, which means we can make the user interface more responsive and simpler to embrace - opening it up to all the workforce.

"In essence, if we can make our systems as ‘plug and play' as possible it means we will have more adopters. It's a simple as that."

Rapid Fusion, which employs ten people at its demo centre in Exeter, has factored in over 1000 different printing parameters into its AI language to come up with ‘best-in-class settings for more than 100 different components.

They feature smart extrusion readiness, which analyses the live temperature across four heating zones with rolling stability windows - in essence, providing confidence-scored go/no-go decisions using realistic heating/cooling profiles per material and pre-determined safety thresholds.
Material aware intelligence also covers extensive variants, including carbon fibre composites and high-temperature polymers. When users say, ‘I need to print a high-temp mould tool,' the AI accesses complete profiles considering heat deflection temperatures, mould shrinkage, thermal expansion, and mechanical properties for optimal configuration.

Martin went on to add: "There's lots more. Task completion orchestrator operates three-tier intent processing; fast pattern matching for simple commands, AI interpretation accesses comprehensive material databases for complex requests, and advanced contextual understanding ensures accurate execution across all scenarios.

"Finally, the AI temperature command handler includes 'smart chained' intentions that combine multiple actions. For example, natural requests trigger automated sequences selecting appropriate materials, configuring multi-zone temperatures, evaluating post-processing requirements, and optimising based on embedded engineering data for the specific application.

"It's feature rich, has a modern user interface, is completely secure and, importantly, has been built for universal integration and agent flexibility, meaning it can be shipped with either an OpenAI-powered agent or a locally hosted AI agent for online/air-gapped use."

He concluded: "There's a massive pre-loaded knowledge based, covering all our products, maintenance guides, troubleshooting and practical print flows. We believe we've come up with a ‘true' additive manufacturing knowledge bible."

There will be two levels of users to start with for Bob. Firstly, a super user, like a trusted partner or University, who can continue to inform and iterate the way Rapid Fusion do things.

Secondly, there will be a standard offer released at the start of 2026 for everyone who has one of the company's systems. With upgrades able to be sent through the air, there is always the ability to improve and support customers even more - the era of smart 3D printing is well and truly here.

For further information, please visit www.rapidfusion.co.uk or follow the company across its social media channels.