ABSTRACT
Industry 4.0 refers to the fourth Industrial Revolution, which entails the development of intelligent and smart manufacturing systems. It necessitates the integration of smart manufacturing and information technology systems in order to produce application-specific components. This has been made possible by the exponential increase in technology and information and communications technology (ICT) during the last decade, resulting in Industry 4.0, which combines biodigital systems to establish an intelligent manufacturing network in which different components communicate and collaborate. Similarly, it is composed of a variety of cutting-edge technologies that enable intelligent and self-contained solutions. This shift entails the combination of emerging disruptive technologies such as 3D printing, the internet of things (IoT), cyber-physical systems (CPS), cybersecurity, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence in industry and businesses. Additive manufacturing (AM) is one such manufacturing technology that has great potential and wide scope in Industry 4.0. AM is an emerging technique to produce equipment for medical applications. The focus of this chapter is on a lower limb prosthesis, namely the prosthetic socket. The proposed approach is based on the 3D scanning of a patient’s residual limb and developing the prosthetic socket using polymer additive manufacturing with the fused deposition modelling (FDM) technique. In addition, future challenges and opportunities are presented.
