U.S. Marines will print military drones in 24 hours
Engineers of the U.S. army together with marine Corps has developed cheap unmanned aerial vehicles to support battalions, platoons and individual soldiers that you can print your order in 24 hours.
This program began two years ago, and the first combat drones, which can be printed on a 3D printer, was presented in 2016 at the annual meeting of Command of combat training and military doctrine of the US Army (TRADOC). Initially in the development of this project helped military specialists the University of Georgia who have combined their knowledge of materials, aviation technology and software with the 3D printer company LulzBot Aleph Objects.
After the draft of additional changes technology was demonstrated to the command of the marine Corps. According to the engineer army research laboratory Larry Holmes Jr. the Marines were very interested in the possibility to manufacture devices for a specific mission.
One of the main aspects that interest the military, became accelerated duty cycle. Usually the process of creating the drone takes a few days or even weeks, but in this case, the UAV can be printed in just a day. Moreover, the manufacturing time can be reduced even further: the developers plan to create a digital catalogue of the different functions of the drones, from which you can simply select and configure for a given mission.
For which tasks will be used printed drones, the US Marines are not reported. Most likely, they will be used for the purpose of exploration. According to military expert Eric Spiro, drones that can be assembled in a few hours of printed on 3D-printer ready electronic elements and parts will be used at the battalion level and below, providing support to the companies, platoons, sections and even individual soldiers. The cost of the new drone will not exceed a few hundred dollars.
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