I was interested to read of a new development in 3D printing technology, applied to military aviation.
The Naval Postgraduate School’s Consortium for Additive Manufacturing Research and Education (CAMRE) has achieved a groundbreaking milestone in military logistics. In a historic moment, CAMRE successfully demonstrated in-flight 3D printing by producing a medical cast aboard a U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft.
. . .
Spencer Koroly hailed the achievement as revolutionary, stating, “Being able to print on the move is truly groundbreaking. Printing medical devices and swarm robotics in the back of an aircraft exemplifies the expeditionary nature of this technology.”
There's more at the link.
The medical application of this technology is obvious: splints, casts, even possibly the repair of prosthetics while the patient is being ferried from the battlefield to a medical facility.
However, the possibilities for "swarm robotics", as the article calls it, are even more intriguing. Almost every major military power is working on using unmanned aerial vehicles as "swarms", cooperating with each other and integrating their operations over a wide area to accomplish a specific result. What if such devices could be created "on the fly", so to speak, to augment an existing swarm or replace battle-damaged units? What if there were no units deployed at all, but only the capability to produce them to standardized designs once the needs of the battlefield were better known?
There's also the possibility of an instant response to enemy robotics on the battlefield. If our soldiers found themselves facing UAV's or other devices that posed a particular threat, it might be feasible to design and "print" devices to counteract them, thus depriving the enemy of an advantage. If our forces had to wait days or weeks to get such devices from the rear, that might be too late; but if they can produce them locally, at very short notice, and improve them incrementally as they gain operational experience with them, that might make a big difference.
This could be very intriguing.
Peter
7 comments:
The problem with printing in motion is that is significantly affects resolution and accuracy.
It isn't an issue for a splint, but it would be for many spare parts.
And unfortunately, no, you can't yet print electronics components, so you can only print some parts for electronics.
Maybe someday...
The game is already over. China, India and Russia will be maturing this technology, not the woke broke a-hole-poke fusa.
Stefan v.
As I understand "print manufacturing" you cannot yet YET print circuits and batteries for those "Swarm drones".
Printing a cast out of plastic is nice, but I suspect that without a scan of the limb involved it fits not much better than the standard SAM splints.
And you could carry a LOT of SAM splints at a lower cost than a supply of plastic "string" molding materials and a machine in a Destroyable vehicle.
Why do I bring this up? Vehicles get destroyed. Even a power hit that doesn't kill the crew means your fancy machine is kaput, but I could grab a lot of SAM splints out of it and drive on.
I will believe that when I can reliably get my office printer to talk to my computer. And print in black and white, correctly collated, without jamming. Then we can try for color and getting another computer to talk to it! Without involving the poor secretary who is the only person that can get it to work...
That assumes that you're going to have all the electronic hardware, software, materials, and electricity in workable condition during combat in a war zone. Isn't that sort of like using your desktop printer in the middle of a 7.5 scale earthquake while your house in on fire? Maybe not...
JWM
Natzsofast.
Producing a medical cast anywhere takes about 10 minutes, with padding, a bucket of water, and some plaster-of-paris splinting material. Oh, and some poor schlub with a broken limb. It's been done in muddy trenches since before the Great War.
It hasn't been "ground-breaking" for about a century.
Using several million$ worth of technology to replicate that level of tech is bordering on the asinine.
{This borders on the breathless idiocy behind the original Kindle: "We've invented a device 5" x 9" that can hold 300 pages of text, and it fits in a pocket!"
"Congratulations, Einstein, Gutenberg figured that one out 500 years ago: It's called a book." Later advances owe everything to Moore's Law, and not much else.}
When they can produce wing spars and engine parts in flight, and have nano-bots repair battle damage mid-air, give a holler. That would actually be news.
I think I saw this movie before. It involved something like "Sky Net"
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