For U.S. soldiers who find themselves at the front lines of a future conflict, it’s fast becoming gospel, due to the way warfare is rapidly evolving on the battlefields of Ukraine, that drones will be crucial to winning (or losing) the fight
But the roughly 500 U.S. dronemakers can only build about 100,000 a year combined, according to Ryan Carver, communications manager for the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International. For comparison: One Chinese firm, DJI, can pump out millions of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) a year — 70% of the global supply.
To ameliorate this challenge/problem, a number of startups believe 3D printing, specifically of drones, can help deploy new tech more quickly in the field.
And the military is interested.
Firestorm Labs, a San Diego-based startup building industrial 3D-printing solutions for the military, envisions those soldiers not just flying drones, but manufacturing them near the battlefield. The firm’s xCell expeditionary manufacturing system fits drone production within a 20-foot-long shipping container. Inside, customized HP industrial 3D printers can spin a six-foot-long drone body out of nine cubic inches of Nylon 12 powder in about 14 hours.
“Industrial 3D printing allows us to leapfrog a lot of the problems we have today,” Firestorm CEO Dan Magy says. “You can solve part of the drone manufacturing gap with new ways to build drones that don’t require them to be exquisite.”
