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3D-Printed UAV Can Go From Atoms to Airborne in 24 Hours

Posted by timothy on from the concept-and-model-in-one dept.

Zothecula (1870348) writes "Because 3D printing allows one-off items to be created quickly and cheaply, it should come as no surprise that the technology has already been used to produce unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. Engineers at the University of Sheffield's Advanced Manufacturing Research Center (AMRC), however, have taken things a step farther. They've made a 3D-printed UAV airframe that's designed to minimize the amount of material needed in its construction, and that can be printed and in the air within a single day."

48 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. so what.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    airframes are trivial. When they can print a motor and power supply, then maybe they'll have something

    1. Re:so what.... by pepty · · Score: 1, Informative

      airframes are trivial. When they can print a motor and power supply, then maybe they'll have something

      They can print copper and silver wire, as well as strontium ferrite magnets. Switching from a linear motor (the 3D printed speaker below) to a rotary motor wouldn't be difficult.

      http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/12/fully-functional-loudspeaker-3-d-printed

      A PSU ... capacitors, resistors, semiconductors, induction coils, and transistors can all be printed. How good a motor and a PSU you can print and how many different printers it would take to make all of the components are other questions.

    2. Re:so what.... by Bartles · · Score: 3, Informative

      Or you can just use copper or silver wire, without having to wait for a machine that can print it. 3d printers are cool, but let's not put them on a pedestal.

    3. Re:so what.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
      You're delusional. You have no idea if that speaker's performance even comes close to the performance of a dollar store speaker, how much it cost, how long it took to print and what its useful lifespan is.

      And if it takes a specially prepared slurry (presumably made in an old Luddite factory, eh?) to make the magnet, doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of 3D printing?

      But let's not let that little detail get in the way of a good 3D auto-fellation,eh?

      And do you think rare-earth magnets just go full strength magically? How do you print something with such a powerful field when there's all this "3D printer" stuff (made of metal I guess) moving around? Hmm?

      Oh wait, rare-earth magnets need to be activated! But hey, that little detail is glossed over and let's just ignore that little bump in the road!

      Let's look at how the Luddites do it:

      https://www.kjmagnetics.com/bl...

      Oh, "They are placed in a fixture that will expose the magnet to a very strong magnetic field for a brief moment. It's basically a big coil of wire surrounding the magnet(s). The magnetizing equipment uses banks of capacitors and a really huge voltage to get such a strong current for a brief instant."

      But 3D printing is magic, I guess we can skip such inconvenient things. Maybe you can 3D print a neutron star and use its magnetic field and then put the neutron star in a 3D unprinter when we're done with it?

      And printing transistors? That's so far away from anything that's even remotely possible, I'm speechless.

      Do you have any inkling of a clue of the material purity required and cleanliness and precision required? Jesus Christ!

      Check it out, someone buys a power transistor from Digi-Key, and a stepper motor places it on a blob of plastic. That's all it takes for you nutcases to run around thinking it's a revolution.

      This is nuts. Uncritical, unthinking 3D cheer-leading.

    4. Re:so what.... by jklovanc · · Score: 2

      They can print copper

      from the article;

      For the conductor, Kiran used a silver ink. For the magnet, he employed the help of Samanvaya Srivastava, graduate student in chemical and biomolecular engineering, to come up with a viscous blend of strontium ferrite.

      I see no mention of copper.

      Switching from a linear motor (the 3D printed speaker below) to a rotary motor wouldn't be difficult.

      I live statements like this; "since we can do A we can do B because they use a similar principle". A linear motor and a radial motor are drastically different. A linear motor is a magnet inside a coil. A few wraps of conductor will do for the coil. For a radial motor you need many more fine conductors wrapped close together to work. Then there is the issue of bearings which have to be smooth enough to handle a few hundred RPM for a significant period of time. A speaker has one moving part suspended by the cone. The tolerances alone make radial motors much more complex than linear motors. A radial motor coil is much harder to print than a speaker.

    5. Re:so what.... by ArcadeMan · · Score: 2

      I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a 3D-printed hammer, to treat everything as if it were a 3D-printed nail.

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    6. Re:so what.... by Hentes · · Score: 1

      Heck, if they could print a working rotor I would be very impressed.

    7. Re:so what.... by pepty · · Score: 1

      You're delusional. You have no idea if that speaker's performance even comes close to the performance of a dollar store speaker, how much it cost, how long it took to print and what its useful lifespan is.

      More like you're too lazy to read to the end of a comment:

      How good a motor and a PSU you can print and how many different printers it would take to make all of the components are other questions.

      I have no problems discerning between a proof of concept and a viable commercial device/ viable commercial process. If you wanted to specify the latter, you should have done so in your posed challenge instead of getting snippy later on.

      And printing transistors? That's so far away from anything that's even remotely possible, I'm speechless.

      You don't get out much, do you?

      Fully Printed, High Performance Carbon Nanotube Thin-Film Transistors on Flexible Substrates

      http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl401934a

      Lucent started printing transistors in the '90s. PARC and their partners are developing printed memory, transistors, and sensors as commercial products.

      Do you have any inkling of a clue of the material purity required and cleanliness and precision required? Jesus Christ!

      Yes I do: very litte. A transistor is DIY at home if you are making them big and primitive, which is sufficient to answer the question you asked. You don't have to make a CPU or mosfets by the truckload to make a single power supply.

    8. Re:so what.... by pepty · · Score: 1

      The posed challenge was "When they can print a motor and power supply", not "when will it make sense to print a motor and power supply". In this case, if you can make a proof of principle speaker, you can make a proof of principle radial motor, neither of which will probably be very practical. One coil, no bearings is enough to make it spin (til the plastic bits melt/wear out).

    9. Re:so what.... by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      In this case, if you can make a proof of principle speaker, you can make a proof of principle radial motor,

      That is a huge leap and a big assumption with no basis in fact. The coil in a linear motor is very different than a coil in a radial motor. The point is that no one has made a 3D printed radial motor. There is a reason for that.

  2. Enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Enough with these "3d printer miracle stories". They arent printing a UAV. They are printing some wings and a fuselage. You still need an engine, control electronics, etc.

    1. Re:Enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Seriously. The 3D cock lost its erection months ago. It seems it's still being sucked by many geeks who can't come to grips with the fact they've been duped.

    2. Re:Enough by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      "Need more vespene gas!"

      Wouldn't you know it!? Rookie mistake!

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
  3. 24 hours compared to what? by viperidaenz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Injection moulded UAV airframe produced in.... minutes?

    The images look pretty poor quality, you can tell by the reflections that the wing shape is bumpy. I guess that's what happens when you 3D print without support material, bits sag while they cool down.

    1. Re:24 hours compared to what? by MiKM · · Score: 1

      Injection moulded UAV airframe produced in.... minutes?

      Out of curiosity, how long would it take to create the mold?

    2. Re:24 hours compared to what? by Arkh89 · · Score: 1

      Ha! I can just bend a piece of paper in matter of seconds...
      This guys are jokes! /sarcasm

    3. Re:24 hours compared to what? by 50000BTU_barbecue · · Score: 1

      How long did it take to create the 3D model?

      --
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    4. Re:24 hours compared to what? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      I assume you could machine it out of a big block of metal.
      A quick google suggests a few weeks to a few months to design and manufacture them depending on complexity and quality.

    5. Re:24 hours compared to what? by viperidaenz · · Score: 3

      .... and a mold would cost $10k - $100k.
      and the 3D printer these guys used costs $400,000. It aint your average makerbot.

    6. Re:24 hours compared to what? by InsultsByThePound · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oh, look at Mr. Subtractive here! I guess we Additives are just way too Positive for you, negative nancy! I'm so sorry we try to build up the world while you like to hack it down to size.

    7. Re:24 hours compared to what? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      Funniest CNC mills-vs-3D printers comment I've seen so far. Too bad I'm out of mod points.

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    8. Re:24 hours compared to what? by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      Injection moulded UAV airframe produced in.... minutes?

      How many minutes and $$$ to produce the mold? It's pretty clear that 3d printing is a poor substitute for bulk production processes. It is however a viable option in case you want to quickly produce a single instance of an item (prototyping, or locations where shipping or stocking items is too slow or too expensive). It's also a good option to produce small runs of complex items. One of my clients started using a (industrial-quality) 3d printer to produce highly complex manifolds for pumps. They had trouble producing that design using injection molding, casting or milling, and they are now using the 3d printer for production runs.

      --
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    9. Re:24 hours compared to what? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      It looks like these guys aren't printing anything complex. They're printing something large.
      It takes them 24 hours to print the UAV frame on a half-million dollar 3D printer. Apparently with all the support material they took away it used to take 120 hours.

      They've taken a very large, expensive hammer and pounded a square peg into a round hole.
      Injection molding is probably also not a good fit for this particular application. They should have spent the 120 hours 3D printing a mold for vacuum forming and made the UAV out of polycarbonate. Perhaps even carving the mold out of wood.

  4. Knock it off with the word inflation! by jtownatpunk.net · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A remote controlled airplane is not a UAV. A remote controlled multi-rotor is not a drone.

    1. Re:Knock it off with the word inflation! by TheRealQuestor · · Score: 1

      A remote controlled airplane is not a UAV. A remote controlled multi-rotor is not a drone.

      technically it is. Anything that flies without a pilot is an Unmanned Arial Vehicle. Be it a fixed wing or helicopter or multi-rotor

      That said to it always ticks me off when somebody calls my quads or hexes drones. They are NOT drones. Drones [in my mind anyway] are killing/spying machines used by the military. Mine are Multi-Rotors. Hobby level flying bricks that just happen to have cameras on them. And not for spying. So I can watch my flights and see what I did wrong.

    2. Re:Knock it off with the word inflation! by Zembar · · Score: 1

      technically it is. Anything that flies without a pilot is an Unmanned Arial Vehicle. Be it a fixed wing or helicopter or multi-rotor .

      Not completely true though. To count as a vehicle it has to transport something, if we're picking at words.

  5. Re:Quick!! by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 1

    Quick!!! A 3D printer can print something! This is newsworthy fodder for Slashdot!!

    And naturally the thing being created is currently very "sexy" in the tech world - a UAV! Why, the uses are unlimited! Amazon can deliver products to the products (you and I), and, and, and...

    I think there are many great possibilities for 3D printing beyond the UAV / plastic gun craze, though.

    --
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  6. Re:atoms to air by QQBoss · · Score: 1

    I didn't read the story or watch any videos or anything, but maybe they 3D printed the spool of filament they used before they turned around and made the plane.

    Ok, maybe not.

    Hmmm, a 3D printer that can spray out lithium... that could be a LOT of fun!

  7. Can anyone see how this thing thrusts? by ReekRend · · Score: 1

    I don't see any openings in the body and no propellers or bumps on it in the video; obviously they added stuff inside - but what?? (The see-through drawing in the video shows nothing?!) I think the real story here is how this thing is magically flying. ;)

    1. Re:Can anyone see how this thing thrusts? by bluescrn · · Score: 1

      This 'flying wing' design is fairly popular with RC aircraft hobbyists. They generally use a pusher propeller on the back, and large control surfaces on each wing known as elevons (combined elevator + ailerons).

  8. Other way around by Dan+East · · Score: 2

    3D-Printed UAV Can Go From Atoms to Airborne in 24 Hours

    And even more impressively, it can go from Airborne to Atoms in only 2 seconds.

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  9. Other way aground by VortexCortex · · Score: 1

    3D-Printed UAV Can Go From Atoms to Airborne in 24 Hours

    And even more impressively, it can go from Airborne to Atoms in only 2 seconds.

    That's nothing. See this rock here? ::woosh:: Now it's airborne. Took less than a second.

    Ah, it's coming back down. Check this out: Feel how the rock is being pulled down to the ground? No matter how long you hold it, it will keep applying that downward force. Infinite energy.

    Look around. Notice anything? Yep, not a single tiger in sight. Repels them.

    1. Re:Other way aground by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      Look down, back up, where are you? You're on a boat.

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  10. Re:Mars Trilogy future comes closer by mikael · · Score: 1

    Then the next challenge is to make a 3D printer that can print out the parts to make a 3D printer, but make sure there's no auto button.

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  11. Re:Really good idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I can build a 1.45m delta wing out of correx/corflute that weighs about 300g with all the electronics on board - I have to add dead weight to it (ballast) to get it up to a 600g flying weight. Shieffields' ABS monstrosity weighs in 2kg - no wonder it flies like a bucket of shit.

  12. Airborne 3D printer by yo303 · · Score: 1

    That's what I am waiting for.

  13. Printed circuits... by flyingfsck · · Score: 1

    I'd like to see them print the electronics.

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  14. Or 1h.. by kangsterizer · · Score: 1

    In other news, a non-3D printed equivalent UAV can be made from zero to flying in about 1H... and has been so for years.
    It will also probably fly better.. all you need is a block of EPP foam and a hot wire (the cut itself takes 5min, full build about 1H)

    so yeah.. it says 3D printer QUICK it must be worth some ads-prints publish!

  15. Re:Mars Trilogy future comes closer by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

    Not sure if trolling or never heard about RepRap.

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  16. Re:Quick!! by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

    Buy your 3D-printed drone using Bitcoin and control it with this new open-source Android app via a wi-fi connected Arduino to spy on your Facebook friends while wearing a tin hat to prevent Google from making you buy the latest teen pop album sold on iTunes.

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  17. Re:Really good idea by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

    If you think it flies like a bucket of shit, wait until you see its crappy landings.

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  18. Obvious? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

    The following "news" was brought to you by Stratasys.

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  19. Strayed from the original idea by thatkid_2002 · · Score: 1

    3D printers were originally intended for creating moulds. 3D print the object and do simple sand-casting. Don't need a $400 000 3D printer.

  20. Re:atoms to air by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    Hmmm, a 3D printer that can spray out lithium... that could be a LOT of fun!

    Lithium? I think I'd just feel ambivalent about it.

    --
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  21. Re:Mars Trilogy future comes closer by StripedCow · · Score: 1

    AFAICT, RepRap cannot print itself. It still needs external components like wires, printed-circuit-board, etc.

    --
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  22. Re:Quick!! by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

    Quick!!! A 3D printer can print something! This is newsworthy fodder for Slashdot!!

    And call it what it is. In this case, a glider.

  23. Re:Quick!! by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

    I think there are many great possibilities for 3D printing beyond the UAV / plastic gun craze, though.

    You are on to something. A 3D printed aerial assault vehicle with 3D printed armaments! All printed in 23 hours!

  24. Re:Quick!! by noh8rz10 · · Score: 1

    do you really think we are the "products" for amazon? I always felt like a customer. I'm giving them cash, and they're not making money from advertising. Not like goog and fb.