Actuatorless reconfigurable multipoint formwork using a multifunctional collaborative robotic arm for carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) panels fabrication

Reconfigurable tooling offers a means of reducing reliance on bespoke molds in composite fabrication, but most multipoint systems often rely on embedded actuators that increase cost and mechanical complexity. In coreless filament winding, where fibre behaviour is highly sensitive to local anchor-point geometry, embedded actuation is generally assumed necessary to ensure positional reliability, and actuatorless approaches have not been experimentally validated. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether a robot-configured actuatorless multipoint formwork can provide sufficient geometric repeatability to support non-planar coreless carbon-fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) winding while consolidating robotic motion control within a single collaborative robotic system. Four identical anticlastic panels were fabricated using the unified computational workflow, integrating surface discretisation, automated pin sequencing, collision detection and robotic winding path planning. Each configured pin-bed was captured with structured light scanning and analysed using cloud-to-mesh deviation analysis, and repeated-measures ANOVA to distinguish global placement shifts from local spatial variation. The results show that although global depth shifts of approximately 1-2mm occurred between configurations, the spatial deviation pattern across the pin array remained highly consistent after normalisation. Regions exhibiting larger depth deviations and angular deviations corresponded to the observed fibre slippage, providing preliminary tolerance ranges under the tested configuration. These results demonstrate that robotic multifunctionality can replace distributed actuation within adaptive formwork, while maintaining geometric repeatability sufficient for controlled coreless CFRP panel fabrication; suggesting that this approach can offer a lower-complexity alternative for adaptive formwork.