HMS Mersey Tests A 3D-Printed UAV at Sea

Kevin Franks, deputy maritime account manager at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, said the MoD has a number of “lines of interest” in 3D Printing. He said: “The ability to use additive manufacture to make a task-specific tool, component, device or even a vehicle out in the field or in a space-constrained moving ship, could have significant impact on the armed forces’ shape and capability.”

So now we know why the Royal Navy ship HMS Mersey has launched something unusual from her gun deck off England’s southern coast: a cheap UAV made using a 3D Printer. The 1.5m wingspan, propeller-driven UAV, known as 'Sulsa', was printed on shore and then assembled on the ship. The test was meant to demonstrate how more-or-less disposable UAVs that could, in a pinch, be printed on board might cut costs and let a crew adapt quickly to a new mission, for example, after a natural disaster.

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers explained that "Within five years, ships could be equipped with multi-material 3D printers able to produce entire unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), tailored to specific missions." ¿Really? Yes: The Sulsa can be printed and fly for only 40 minutes. ¿Not much? Yes, but that could be enough for missions such as responding to reports of piracy, where being able to easily check out a vessel from a distance of 10 miles or so is valuable. If they shoot at it, who cares? You send another one up.

¿New Hope for Mountain Rescues?

A student team at the prestigious University of Warwick School of Engineering in Coventry, England, has designed an UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) with the ability to deliver immediate aid and equipment to people in trouble, before a rescue team arrives.

The project’s design lead, Ed Barlow (who has since graduated), knew he had a large-format 3D printer at his disposal. And that meant the team could design and manufacture something different than existing UAVs for aid and supply drops, such as the drones US startup Zipline uses to deliver blood and plasma to Rwandan hospitals: “They all use an airframe that you can go and buy from a shop,” Barlow says. “We needed our own custom airframe, made specifically for long-distance flight with a heavy payload.”

Warwick Associate Professor of Engineering Simon Leigh, who specializes in Additive Manufacturing, guided Barlow’s team during the project. He knew they would 3D-print reusable molds of the UAV body parts and then use them to resin-infuse strong-yet-light carbon fiber to create the finished product. Leigh says it took about one month of continuous 3D printing to finish the molds. After that, infusing the carbon fiber proved a challenge, as well: “We used liquid-resin infusion, which is under the vacuum,” Barlow says. “You apply a vacuum to your carbon fiber on the mold, and then you inject resin into it under the vacuum. That’s generally done on a much bigger scale, with much easier geometric parts than we were using, so we had to invent a lot of really cool tools to do it.”