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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."

6 of 33 comments (clear)

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

    Do they exist in the Cloud? Are they webscale?

    1. 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 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.

  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.
  4. 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