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U.S. Army Testing 3D-Printed Mission-Specific Drones (thestack.com)

Posted by yaelk on from the drones dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. army will conduct field experiments early in 2016 to test the feasibility of designing and 3D-printing military drones in direct response to specific operational challenges. The Army is working in conjunction with Georgia Tech's Aerospace System Design Labs in the next round of Army Expeditionary Warrior Experiments (AEWE) to develop the responsive drone pipeline. Dr. Mark Valco, director of the Vehicle Technology Directorate says "Innovation is the key. We're demonstrating a capability, but we need to evolve design tools, higher-grade materials and the ability to print faster. Our researchers are continually looking for opportunities to enable these new capabilities."

33 comments

  1. 3d printed? drones? by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

    Do they exist in the Cloud? Are they webscale?

    1. Re:3d printed? drones? by penguinoid · · Score: 1

      It also is solar powered, and uploads video via a cloud-based webcam so people can watch as an eco-friendly, artisianally crafted from locally sourced renewable materials, hellfire missile blows op some filthy terrorists and/or innocent bystanders. It will also post to Twitter, default message "Another strike for freedom", and post a picture of the resulting crater on Instagram.

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    2. Re:3d printed? drones? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do they exist in the Cloud? Are they webscale?

      The pressing question is actually.... BUT would they 3-D print A CAR?????

      Side note, it looks like APK figured out his spam was blocked and has decided to go full-on retard today.

    3. Re:3d printed? drones? by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      And does Elon Musk have any involvement?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  2. Not the best for a quick response. by blueshift_1 · · Score: 2

    We need to counter attack now, fire up the 3-D printer. *waits 18 hours to print*

    1. Re:Not the best for a quick response. by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      Really what do more do you need a drone to do they can already fly half way around the world kill a bunch of "terrorists" and then fly back half way around the world to where they started.

      I suppose you could give the machine full authority to decide what the target is fire at will and all that. That would probably save a bit of money not having to pay pilots.

      After reading TFA..

      Oh you mean those stupid little flying rc camera things. So they want one that has the flight time of an rc plane but they also want it to hover. sounds like something that could be handled with a modular setup.

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    2. Re:Not the best for a quick response. by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      Obviously doesn't fit for a lightning response mission, but if you've got 72 hours to plan - this could give you an asset that might otherwise take months to develop. Also, designs can be proven in Omaha, or wherever, and then printed as needed in-theater. 5 million permutations of airframe design options, all available within 72 hours on-deck in the South China Sea.

    3. Re:Not the best for a quick response. by JoeMerchant · · Score: 2

      The point of print-on-demand is that they don't know what they want ahead of time.

      Sadly, I think most of these design choices will be optimizing flight time vs capability, and if you bake the thing out of bespoke carbon fiber you'll probably get better flight time and capability than any option 3D printed with currently available materials.

    4. Re:Not the best for a quick response. by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Your tech tree sucks. Here, buy this. *click*

      "You require more vespene gas."...this will take awhile.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
  3. Finally! by The-Ixian · · Score: 2

    A story about 3d printers and bonus points for a drone mention.

    Minus points for not mentioning IoT, Windows 10 or back doors...

    Here is the perfect headline for you:

    "3d printed IoT drones running Windows 10 have secret back doors"

    --
    My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    1. Re:Finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only if the Windows 10 is running on a Raspberry Pi and they bought it with BitCoins.

    2. Re:Finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here is the perfect headline for you:

      "3d printed IoT drones running Windows 10 have secret back doors"

      That would be a perfect headline for any other day of the week, but it is Friday, and it has no mention of SJWs.

    3. Re:Finally! by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

      Oh yeah, totally forgot about STEM! *doh*

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    4. Re:Finally! by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      No, it has to mine bitcoins while it's "in the cloud."

  4. Hey stalking creep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have a slinger, and it was from my father's toy before teaching me how to rock the shit of anything in motion. (just in case You are wondering what would happen if stalking me with a drone)

  5. Stupid. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does it come in gold-plated?

  6. Déjà vu by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 3, Funny

    The army, building a factory that can make drones on demand.

    Do you want Skynet? Because this is how you get Skynet. /Archer

    1. Re:Déjà vu by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      No they are 3d printing custom parts to build customized rc planes.

      If they were actually building a automated factory like you imply TFA would have been worth reading.

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    2. Re:Déjà vu by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      Makes me think: if they were flying somewhat larger drones (100lb range), this could be used to print whatever breaks on demand. Breaking parts is a pretty common thing in planes that land without pilots in them.

    3. Re:Déjà vu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29579

      Watchbird by Robert Sheckley, 1953

    4. Re:Déjà vu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      public class DroneFactoryFactory

  7. Am I the only one by werepants · · Score: 1

    Am I the only one who reads this and thinks being a combat drone engineer would be a really cool job? How cool would it be to have some new enemy strategy (submerged IEDs in swamps or something) and be assigned to design and build a new robot on the fly to tackle the issue (robosharks with fricking lasers, perhaps?)

    I'm just saying. Realism, practicality, and ethics aside - this would be a badass videogame.

    1. Re:Am I the only one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except it's not a game, you're killing actual human beings. Yes a lot of them are "bad guys", but in war both sides commit atrocities against civilians. Also, there's always the question of "why", why are we fighting them? That's where the devil is, and then you find that in the end all this war bullshit is just a game played by the big boys and people keep buying into the "freedom" bullshit just as much as the IS dudes think they'll conquer the world with their backwards ideas. If you think about it, once you reach the tech-level to make nukes then you don't really need anything else, no one will attack you anymore.

    2. Re:Am I the only one by nospam007 · · Score: 1

      "Am I the only one who reads this ..."

      Yes.

    3. Re:Am I the only one by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Am I the only one who reads this and thinks being a combat drone engineer would be a really cool job?

      Try Robocraft, it's a tiny little bit like that. You build bots and then battle them. Sadly, no transformers. (Yet? Probably not, but who knows)

      --
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  8. Model T by bussdriver · · Score: 1

    This is just the BEGINNING. It illustrates that this is an actionable strategy in the works; not some empty brainstorming. It also means that this is a demo of the concept and if it works even slightly will be applied more broadly. Remember, the military is ok with buying really expensive things that don't even work at all for a few years or even that well after some of the kinks are worked out.

    Imagining a next gen carrier being a floating factory of drone fighters where they no longer need to maintain and store the fighters is likely something that has already been thought up. ( nowhere in the pipeline, except that projects like this are the foundation of things like that.)

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    Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
    1. Re:Model T by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      First they were talking about those little rc planes/quad copters the media likes to call drones.

      As for the actual drones that carry missiles and such the us already has them stationed at 64 bases around the country from what I understand the one in Fort Worth, TX regularly flies them to Afghanistan and back. Who knows how many they just leave in flight at any given time.

      I don't see them replacing standard air carriers anytime soon but I'm sure we will see them adding drones to what they already carry within the next 2 years if they haven't already.

      Floating factory? Ehhh I'm sure they would add a couple of 3d printers to each carrier just in case but the prefab stuff will still be of higher quality so I figure they will just keep plenty of spare parts on hand and drones still require maintaince so a repair crew will still be required staff.
      As for storage with our military's budget they could probably leave the entire drone fleet airborne 24/7 aside from repairs and refuling without anyone being able to notice the cost of fuel although id like to think they would put them in a hanger somewhere when not needed.

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  9. Not practical by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It seems cool until you think about real world usage. Mission-specific drones are, by definition, single use. That means financial efficiency is getting thrown out with the bath water. Pardon the pun, but I think this will never fly.