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US Navy Tests 3D Printing Custom Drones On Its Ships
itwbennett writes: Researchers at the Naval Postgraduate School are testing the use of 3D printers on ships to produce custom drones outfitted for specialized missions. The idea, said Alan Jaeger, a faculty research associate at the school, is that ships could set sail with kits of the core electronics parts, since they are common to most drones, but have the bodies designed according to specific requirements for each mission. A prototype drone was designed by engineers on shore based on requirements of the sailors at sea, and the 3D design file was emailed to the USS Essex over a satellite link. Flight tests revealed some of the potential problems, most of which were associated with operating the drone rather than the printing itself, Jaeger said. 'Even with a small amount of wind, something this small will get buffeted around,' he said. They also had to figure out the logistics of launching a drone from a ship, getting it back, how it integrated with other flight operations, and interference from other radio sources like radar.
Flight tests revealed some of the potential problems, most of which were associated with operating the drone rather than the printing itself, Jaeger said. 'Even with a small amount of wind, something this small will get buffeted around,' he said. They also had to figure out the logistics of launching a drone from a ship, getting it back
Shouldn't they be fixing this first?
Are they IoT compatible? And are they connected to the Cloud and webscale? If they were it would be a 100% perfect activity as it hits all the buzzwords of the week!
That seems a little silly to me. Should I custom make the drone with four propellers, or four? Should I have a camera, or a camera? Should I have the most appropriate battery, or the most appropriate one?
Newsflash: places with machine shops need to fabricate objects, so they use the latest technology available. Surprise to uneducated people: US Navy ships have machine shops on-board, because they often need to fabricate objects while at sea. The surprising twist: when you're at sea, you can't just order from Amazon, you have to make it right then and there. Crazy, eh?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
We need to be able to 3D print drones that can 3D print more drones. This is the answer to scaling up quickly and overwhelming the enemy. Bonus if you can incorporate human brains or body parts into the mix.
Do you want Skynet drones factories?
Because that's how you get Skynet drones factories.
Seriously, all the parts seem to be falling into place. Time for a reboot of the Terminator franchise? (one without humanoid robots walking around and delivering punchlines).
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Print what you actually need on board ship... repair parts... These ships have big inventories of parts that they know will wear out, parts that could break, and of course... consumable munitions.
These are the things you print aboard ship.
Rather than giving a ship a huge inventory of repair parts, you give them a few printers and the raw materials to print whatever is needed.
This can't work with everything... at least with our current level of technology. But the idea should be to give the Navy more space in the cargo hold for things besides repair parts because they can make them as needed. Or to give them the ability to fabricate things faster than they can be transported to them.
If the printers aren't doing either of these things then they're just taking up space.
These are supposed to be war ships. Its not fing star trek with a little science team on board. They're engines of destruction. Everything has to service that end aboard ship. If you have another agenda... get your own boat and do it there.
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Not to be tedious but those are just r/c quadcopters. Many people print them on hobby-class 3D printers.
Printing a customized Predator would be a worthy goal, calling this effort "research" is just pathetic.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
We're going to be the Protoss!
When someone says, "Any fool can see
On a ship you have more than cross winds, you have wind coming up the sides and the acceleration across the deck, etc. I don't think a battery powered drone, even with enough control surfaces and mass, would have much flight time.
Enough said
I'm pretty sure they just printed out this quad from thingiverse. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:234867
The machine shop had rods and sheets of various metals. The typical assortment of machines as well.
I discussed with some others before in that printing on a ship or forward deployed base is a waste of money, time, and space. I could see the various depots having printing shops, that makes sense. That'd certainly save on local inventory. Another factor is MILSPEC, they'd have to MILSPEC it all again for 3D printed parts. Not too hard but expensive an time consuming.
A faculty research associate wanted to play with 3D printers and drones on the federal dime.
Bingo!
Actually, yes, you do. The Navy does a lot more than just sail around in full carrier centric battle groups.
They don't.
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http://www.amazon.com/Foundry-Manual-United-States-Navy/dp/1410109003/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438292069&sr=8-1&keywords=us+navy+foundry+manual
you can't carry spares for everything
Some people here seem pretty stupid.
Obviously as a new tech the Navy and other Services as going to investigate new tech and see where it fits into their repair chain.
Just like they did 10 years or more ago with railguns, they will investigate, research, and improve upon the current state of the art.
5-6 years from now, it might be commonplace for them to be able to replace almost anything plastic or metal from some sort of 3D printer/CNC mashup. As said, Avionics is doing it, so doing it on a floating ship shouldn't be too hard, unless its in the middle of a pitched battle.
This is along the lines of my idea for modular space exploration probes...I put a brief abstract here on my site. The basic idea is a space-based 3-d printer that also brings along the unprintable probe parts and electronics, and can print out the body of the probes per mission criteria. Also, the electronic packages are in a modular system so we can send out "refuels" of unprintable parts on regular basis so the system can keep on exploring with minimal human interaction for many years.