Patent ID: 11884019
Assignee: RAYTHEON COMPANY
Field: Other special machines (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC B  G | IPC B  G

Claim 10:
11. A method of encoding a physical object during additive manufacturing of the object, the method comprising:
providing a computer model of the object that includes instructions to additively manufacture at least a portion of the object, and includes instructions to encode at least a portion of the object with information;
additively manufacturing the object according to the model, wherein the object is at least partially formed by a plurality of voxels of material disposed at different spatial locations of the object along three-dimensions, each of the voxels having magnetic domains that are inducible with permanent magnetism via exposure to an external magnetic field; and
encoding the object with the information according to the model;
wherein the encoding is performed during the additive manufacturing;
wherein the encoding includes exposing at least some of the voxels at the different spatial locations of the object to the external magnetic field, the external magnetic field having a magnetic vector direction and a magnetic vector intensity that induces permanent magnetism into the magnetic domains of the respectively exposed voxels, such that the magnetic domains configure and retain their magnetic vector orientation in the same direction as the magnetic vector direction of the external magnetic field and/or configure and retain their magnetic vector intensity proportional to the magnetic vector intensity of the external magnetic field, and wherein, during the encoding, the magnetic vector direction and/or magnetic vector intensity of the external magnetic field is varied at the different spatial locations of the object to form a spatial array of different magnetic characteristics in the object that represents the encoded; and
wherein the object is made of a metallic base material, and wherein the magnetic domains are part of magnetic grains forming the metallic base material.