Typed, ordered, inspectable
A run is a job, a simulated recipe and a graph of typed steps. Every step has an agent, a tool, a duration and a status, and the whole record is kept per build and per layer.
Features
Capability by capability, with the limit on each.
Powdrix's features are the mechanics of a system that is allowed to touch a qualified production printer: typed runs, a policy engine with the parameter envelope, named approvals, in-situ perception, a twin, genealogy and an audit log. The list below is design scope, not a shipped feature list.
Illustrative scenario: PBF-2 · Ti-6Al-4V bracket family, 24-part build, 23 of 24 parts released, one held
Features
What the platform does
Each capability names what it does and where its limit sits.
The envelope enforced at call time
The OEM-approved parameter envelope, per-tag rate and magnitude limits, autonomy level, part family and qualification status are evaluated before any parameter moves.
Named humans at the gate
Anything that leaves the envelope, changes a validated recipe or affects a part's disposition waits for the approver the floor names. The request, the reasoning and the decision are logged.
Vision, photodiode and thermal, one model
Melt-pool video, layer and recoater images and thermal streams fused into one estimate of build health per layer, with precursors predicted seconds ahead.
Rehearse before you build
Candidate recipes ranked on predicted density, geometry, takt and energy before release, stress-tested against rare defect scenarios, and calibrated against CT when the build is done.
The record of every part
Recipe, powder lot, layer tags, melt-pool events, thermal trace, approvals, post-processing cycles, CT result and disposition, exportable as a qualification packet.
Criteria-aware, signed off
2D and 3D segmentation of every volume, graded against the alloy and part acceptance criteria with a human sign-off checkpoint, and linked to the layer that caused the defect.
Approve, correct, feed back
AM process and certification engineers see recommendations with their evidence, approve or correct them, and those corrections train the models.
Append-only, assurance-grade
Every agent action with model version, data lineage, source signals, predicted impact, allowed range, approval status and qualification impact.
Every answer cites its source
Retrieval over parameter sets, build and qualification specs, AS9100, ISO 13485, ASTM F42 and ISO 52900 documents and quality procedures, tenant-isolated.
The craft, written down
Per-floor yield and quality history and per-engineer and per-machine performance memory, versioned and scoped per tenant.
Many machines, one policy
Model versions promoted by machine with canary rollout and automatic fallback; group policy with per-site override on the Enterprise tier.
Run timeline · scenario
One scenario run, step by step
Every Powdrix run is an ordered, inspectable sequence. This is run_7c2e4b on PBF-2 · Ti-6Al-4V bracket family, 24-part build. Scenario completes in 10 steps with one approval gate. Twin recipe #14 selected, one lack-of-fusion precursor at layer 1,872 cleared by a bounded power trim, CT triage in 11 minutes, 23 of 24 parts released with full genealogy and one held for review.
run_7c2e4b
PBF-2 · Ti-6Al-4V bracket family, 24-part build
illustrative scenario
SUCCEEDED
-
01
ingest.job
SUCCEEDED
0.7 s
Floor Orchestrator · Pulled the job from AM MES: 24 Ti-6Al-4V brackets, 60 µm layers, 3,140 layers, density target 99.7%, geometry tolerance ±0.10 mm, AS9100 evidence packet required. Locked the OEM-approved parameter envelope for PBF-2.
-
02
twin.simulate
SUCCEEDED
6 m 12 s
Part Twin · Simulated 40 candidate orientation, support and parameter recipes for thermal field, residual stress and distortion, ranked on predicted density, geometry deviation, takt and energy.
-
03
prep.release
SUCCEEDED
48 s
Prep-and-Parameter · Recipe #14 released: 32° orientation, lattice supports on two faces, laser power and speed inside the qualified envelope. Predicted distortion 0.06 mm, predicted density 99.8%.
-
04
recoat.check
SUCCEEDED
continuous
Recoat-and-Powder · Recoater image checked every layer. Powder lot L-2291 on its third reuse, humidity in window. One short-feed at layer 412 corrected with a dosing increase before the next layer fused.
-
05
melt.stabilise
SUCCEEDED
continuous
Melt-and-Layer · Melt-pool, photodiode and thermal streams fused at 120 fps. Lack-of-fusion risk rose to 0.61 on part 17 at layer 1,872 and was cleared by a 3% power trim inside the envelope within four layers.
-
06
thermal.compensate
SUCCEEDED
2 m 04 s
Thermal-and-Distortion · Interlayer temperature on the tall brackets ran 14 °C above the twin's prediction from layer 2,300. A 1.5 s interlayer dwell held the thermal field inside the predicted band through the top section.
-
07
approve.human
APPROVAL
4 m 30 s
Floor Orchestrator · Melt-and-Layer proposed a hatch-spacing change on part 17 beyond the qualified envelope. Held for the AM process engineer, who declined it and chose to flag part 17 for CT priority instead. Decision logged.
-
08
handle.depowder
SUCCEEDED
38 m
Robot-and-Handling · Plate unloaded by the handling cell on build complete, depowdered, and parts transferred to stress relief. Powder returned to the sieve with lot L-2291 reuse count incremented in genealogy.
-
09
inspect.ct
SUCCEEDED
11 m
Defect-and-Inspect · 24 CT volumes segmented for pores, cracks and lack of fusion in 11 minutes. 23 parts graded accept against the acceptance criteria. Part 17 shows a 180 µm indication at layer 1,870 and is routed to the inspector for disposition.
-
10
release.qualify
SUCCEEDED
1 m 20 s
Quality-and-Conformance · 23 parts released with the full genealogy: recipe, layer tags, melt-pool events, thermal trace, approvals, post-processing cycles and CT result. Part 17 held with a non-conformance opened. Evidence packet assembled for sign-off.
Tool calls · scenario
The agent shows its work
Every tool invocation, argument and result is written to an append-only, human-readable log, and every reasoning step is expandable. Nothing about a build is hidden from the floor or from the certification engineer.
- 05:10:04mes.read_job({ printer: "PBF-2", job: "J-4471" })
- 05:10:05ok 24 parts · Ti-6Al-4V · 3,140 layers · envelope locked
- 05:10:05twin.simulate({ candidates: 40, targets: ["density", "geometry", "takt"] })
- 05:16:17ok best recipe #14 · distortion 0.06 mm · density 99.8% · takt 31.2 h
- 05:16:18policy.evaluate({ recipe: 14, autonomy: "L3" })
- 05:16:18ok recipe inside envelope · 6 bounded writes permitted
- 05:16:19printer.release_recipe({ id: 14, orientation: 32, supports: "lattice" })
- 05:17:07ok build started · layer 1 of 3,140
- 06:02:40recoat: short feed at layer 412 · dosing +4% applied
- 13:48:11precursor: lack-of-fusion risk 0.61 · part 17 · layer 1,872
- 13:48:12printer.trim_power({ part: 17, delta: "-3%", layers: 4 })
- 13:49:03ok risk 0.61 → 0.08 · pool stable
- 13:49:04approval.request({ action: "hatch_change", part: 17 })
- 13:53:34ok declined by AM process engineer · part 17 flagged CT priority
- 18:21:50printer.set_dwell({ interlayer: "+1.5 s", from_layer: 2300 })
- 18:23:54ok thermal field inside predicted band
- 12:20:30isaac.plan_grasp({ task: "unload_plate", cell: "RC-1" })
- 12:58:30ok depowdered · 24 parts to stress relief · lot L-2291 reuse 4
- 14:05:02ct.segment({ volumes: 24, criteria: "BRK-TI-A" })
- 14:16:02ok 23 accept · 1 indication 180 µm · part 17 → inspector
- 14:16:03packet.sign({ job: "J-4471", parts: 23, hold: [17] })
- 14:17:23ok scenario complete · 23 released · 1 NCR opened
Reasoning trace
Plan, thought, action, observation, exactly as the orchestrator would record it.
GoalRun job J-4471, 24 Ti-6Al-4V brackets on PBF-2, to 99.7% densi…
Run job J-4471, 24 Ti-6Al-4V brackets on PBF-2, to 99.7% density and ±0.10 mm, with an AS9100 evidence packet on every released part.
PlanSimulate the recipe on the twin first. Release only inside the…
Simulate the recipe on the twin first. Release only inside the qualified envelope. Watch recoat and melt pool every layer, compensate thermally against the twin, and route anything outside the envelope to the process engineer. Triage every part by CT before release.
ThoughtThree candidate recipes beat #14 on takt but predicted distort…
Three candidate recipes beat #14 on takt but predicted distortion above 0.08 mm on the tall brackets. Takt is not worth a geometry failure on a qualified part family. Recipe #14 wins on the stated targets.
Actiontwin.simulate(candidates=40) returns recipe #14: 32° orientati…
twin.simulate(candidates=40) returns recipe #14: 32° orientation, lattice supports, power and speed inside the envelope, predicted distortion 0.06 mm.
ObservationLack-of-fusion risk 0.61 on part 17 at layer 1,872. A 3% power…
Lack-of-fusion risk 0.61 on part 17 at layer 1,872. A 3% power trim, inside the envelope, clears it in four layers. The proposed hatch change would leave the envelope, so it goes to a human and is declined.
ActionFlag part 17 for CT priority. Hold interlayer dwell at +1.5 s …
Flag part 17 for CT priority. Hold interlayer dwell at +1.5 s from layer 2,300 to keep the thermal field inside the twin's band.
ObservationCT confirms a 180 µm indication on part 17 at layer 1,870, two…
CT confirms a 180 µm indication on part 17 at layer 1,870, two layers below the precursor. The other 23 parts grade accept. The precursor, the action and the CT result are now one linked record.
OutcomeScenario complete. 23 parts released with full genealogy, part…
Scenario complete. 23 parts released with full genealogy, part 17 held with a non-conformance, CT triage in 11 minutes, no unapproved parameter left the envelope.
Where it pays
Four loops, four metrics
Powdrix is not a dashboard. Each agent closes a loop an additive floor already measures in scrapped builds, failed qualifications, CT hours and idle machine time. The tables show what each loop watches and what it is allowed to move.
Melt-pool instability
Catch the pore before the layer fuses
Melt-pool video, photodiode and thermal streams are fused at the printer edge into a rolling risk score for porosity, lack of fusion and keyholing. When risk crosses the threshold the agent has layers, not hours, to trim power inside the envelope instead of scrapping the build at CT.
- Vision, photodiode and thermal fused at 30 to 240 fps
- Prediction seconds ahead, not review after the fact
- Every precursor, action and CT outcome labelled into the training set
agent.melt_layer SUCCEEDED
| Signal | Watches | Moves |
|---|---|---|
| Melt-pool signature | Watched per layer, per part | Power and speed trim inside the envelope |
| Keyhole and spatter | Classified from video and photodiode | Focus and speed recommendation |
| Lack-of-fusion risk | Scored continuously | Trim, CT priority flag, or hold request |
Recoat and powder
Stop the streak from becoming a scrapped build
A recoat fault at layer 400 ruins a build that finishes a day later. Recoat-and-Powder reads the recoater image every layer, tracks lot, reuse and humidity, and corrects dosing or asks for a hold before the next layer is fused.
- Recoater image and bed uniformity map checked every layer
- Powder lot, sieve and reuse history carried into genealogy
- Short feeds and streaks corrected before fusion
agent.recoat_powder SUCCEEDED
| Signal | Watches | Moves |
|---|---|---|
| Bed uniformity | Recoater camera, every layer | Dosing and recoat speed inside limits |
| Powder quality | Lot, reuse count, humidity | Reuse limit and sieve request |
| Streaks | Detected before fusion | Hold request to the orchestrator |
Inspection
Grade every part, in minutes, with the evidence attached
Spot CT on a sample and hours of manual review cannot keep pace with serial production. Poroscan segments every volume on GPUs, grades against the acceptance criteria with a human sign-off, and links the defect back to the layer and the signal that produced it.
- 2D and 3D CT segmentation served on Triton
- Criteria-aware grading with a named sign-off
- Qualification packet assembled with citations
agent.defect_inspect SUCCEEDED
| Signal | Watches | Moves |
|---|---|---|
| Porosity and cracks | CT volume segmentation | Accept, reject or inspector routing |
| Surface faults | Vision inspection | Rework or reject suggestion |
| Geometry | Metrology deviation | Compensation feedback to Parttwin |
Before the build
Rehearse the build on the twin
Every recipe is simulated for thermal field, residual stress and distortion before release. Candidates that save takt but push distortion or predicted density outside target are discarded automatically, and the winner is stress-tested against rare defect scenarios.
- 10 to 40 candidate recipes per part family
- Ranked on density, geometry, takt and energy
- The chosen recipe is released inside the envelope and logged
twin.parttwin SUCCEEDED
| Signal | Watches | Moves |
|---|---|---|
| Orientation and supports | Thermal and stress simulation | Validated recipe to Prep-and-Parameter |
| Parameters | Melt-pool proxy and density prediction | Envelope-checked recipe to Meltrix |
| Distortion | As-built versus as-designed | Compensation and predicted-defect map to Poroscan |
Autonomy
Four levels, set per agent and per machine
A qualified floor does not go from manual to unattended in one step. Powdrix makes the level explicit, auditable and reversible at any time, and human approval for anything that affects qualification stays mandatory until validation exists. The first release runs shadow mode, then assist mode, then graduated autonomy.
| Level | What the agent does | What the human does | Where it sits in a pilot |
|---|---|---|---|
| L1 · Advisory | Predicts and recommends, with citations; nothing is written | Enters every change manually | Shadow mode on one machine, first weeks of a pilot |
| L2 · Supervised | Proposes a parameter, thermal or inspection move; it executes on approval | Approves each move in the review console | Assist mode once accuracy is measured against CT |
| L3 · Bounded | Writes inside the OEM-approved parameter envelope and per-tag limits | Approves anything that leaves the envelope or affects qualification | Graduated autonomy on low-risk loops, if the floor is satisfied |
| L4 · Unattended | Runs the envelope without prompting | Sets the envelope; reviews the shift record | Planned; only after validation on the part family |
Accelerated computing
Physical AI, at the melt pool
A build is thousands of layers and a day of machine time. Perception has to be local, deterministic and fast, CT has to be triaged in minutes, and the twin has to run before the build. Powdrix runs GPU inference at the printer edge and keeps training, simulation and optimisation in the cloud or on-prem.
Edge perception
One Jetson node per printer for 30 to 240 fps melt-pool, layer and recoater streams with photodiode and thermal fusion. Sub-250 ms alerting and 1 to 2 s bounded recommendations are the design targets. Jetson Thor is planned for multi-laser machines.
CT and vision inference
2D and 3D segmentation models for porosity, cracks, lack of fusion, surface defects and metrology comparison, served per inspection cell. Sub-15-minute CT triage per build is the design target.
Training
Defect, melt-pool-instability, build-failure and AM reasoning models trained weekly over multimodal build data, with gated promotion from shadow to assist to bounded. Dedicated capacity is planned.
Part twin
Thermal, melt-pool-proxy, residual-stress and distortion simulation for recipe ranking, plus robot-cell and queue simulation. Modulus surrogates are planned so sweeps run at production cadence.
Synthetic data
Rare pore, lack-of-fusion, spatter, recoat-streak and distortion scenarios generated and validated against real CT and in-situ data before promotion. 1,000 to 10,000 per qualified part family is the initial target.
Optimisation and analytics
Build nesting, fleet scheduling across machines, ovens, HIP, inspection and robots, energy windows, and GPU analytics over genealogy tables.
Robot handling and serving
Plate, powder and part handling policies trained in simulation and run on Jetson in the cell. NIM packages perception, prediction and reasoning services behind the floor orchestrator.
Guardrails
An agent that can trim laser power needs a leash
Powdrix writes to production printers that make qualified parts. Every capability is scoped to the qualified envelope, every write is policy-checked, and every action is written to an append-only audit log the floor owns.
- Bounded action space. Each agent writes only to an explicit allow-list of printer, oven and cell parameters, inside the OEM-approved envelope and per-tag rate and magnitude limits.
- Policy engine before every write. Autonomy level, part family, qualification status, machine state and operator presence are evaluated before a parameter moves.
- Human approval for qualification-impacting actions. Anything that leaves the qualified envelope, changes a validated recipe or affects a part's disposition waits for a named approver. This stays mandatory until validation exists.
- Immutable audit log. Append-only and exportable. Every action records model version, data lineage, source signals, predicted impact, allowed range, approval status and qualification impact.
- Hard fallback. Loss of the edge node, the network or a model returns control to the printer's own controller and the standing recipe.
- Tenant and IP isolation. Parameter sets, part geometry, defect libraries and process memory never cross a customer boundary. On-prem deployment is available for sensitive producers.
Compliance posture
| Item | Scope | Status |
|---|---|---|
| SOC 2 Type I | Cloud control plane | QUEUED Planned, first 6 months |
| SOC 2 Type II | Cloud control plane | QUEUED Planned, 6 to 12 months |
| SSO and RBAC | Console and approvals | QUEUED Planned, 6 to 12 months |
| AS9100 and ISO 13485 assurance packages | Evidence packets and model change control | QUEUED Planned, 6 to 12 months; not a certification claim |
| Standards-cited reasoning | AS9100, ISO 13485, ASTM F42, ISO 52900 | RUNNING In the design, every answer cites its source |
| Per-tenant isolation and on-prem option | Recipes, geometry, models, memory | RUNNING In the design from day one |
FAQ
Straight answers
The questions operations directors, process engineers and certification engineers ask in the first meeting.
Only inside the OEM-approved parameter envelope, only on an explicit allow-list with per-tag limits, and only at the autonomy level your floor has set. Level 1 is advisory: Powdrix predicts and recommends and a human enters everything. Design partners start there, in shadow mode. Anything that leaves the envelope or affects qualification always waits for a named approver.
Control returns to the printer's own controller and the standing recipe. Powdrix is a supervisory layer on top of the machine controls, monitoring systems and MES you already run, never a replacement for them, so an outage degrades the floor to its current way of running, not to a stop.
Advisory recommendations start from the twin's physics and the part spec in the first weeks. Defect and build-failure prediction improve as layers, CT results and engineer corrections accumulate per part family. The first models are trained on existing in-situ camera data; synthetic rare-defect scenarios augment them only after validation against real CT.
Only if you choose cloud training. Parameter sets, geometry, defect libraries and process memory are isolated per tenant and never used to train another customer's models. Cross-customer learning is federated and IP-isolated and waits on written data agreements. A fully on-prem deployment is available for sensitive producers.
It is designed not to. Validated parameters never change without the sign-off your quality system requires, model changes go through change control, and every action carries model version, data lineage, approval status and qualification impact in the audit log. Powdrix does not claim AS9100 or ISO 13485 certification; assurance packages are planned for the 6 to 12 month release.
You are, as with any process change, which is why every write is policy-checked, bounded, logged and reversible, and why anything that affects qualification waits for a named approver. The audit log records the request, the reasoning, the limits applied and the human decision.
Get started
See the features on one machine
Start with one printer or one inspection cell and one measurable baseline. A paid pilot on melt-pool and build-failure prediction, CT porosity triage or pre-build recipe optimisation shows the number before you commit further.