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Drone designer and manufacturer General Atomics Aeronautical Systems partnered with digital manufacturing specialist Divergent Technologies to develop its additive manufacturing techniques and implement a ‘fully digital manufacturing process’ for its products.
The two Californian firms used the techniques to assemble a copy of the Sparrowhawk small UAS (unmanned aircraft system) in less than two days.
“What if you could assemble new ones in a matter of hours, not weeks or months? Now we can,” General Atomics wrote on Twitter.
“The technology involved is very complicated, but the benefits are simple – producing UAS in large quantity, in short time, at a comparatively low cost.”
The AI-driven and topology-optimised designs were 3D-printed as an integrated metal structure, reducing part count integration by over 95% and meeting weight targets.
Divergent’s data-driven approach, known as Divergent Adaptive Production System (Daps), inspected each printed component by creating a full digital twin of the aircraft, which was then applied to a fully automated robotic assembly process that took less than 20 minutes to complete.
“This process enabled the team to go from a print-ready SUAS (small UAS) design to a fully assembled deliverable airframe in less than two days,” General Atomics said.
The approach could cut the cost of airframes, while also enabling an iterative design approach for multiple variants of a single aircraft. The capability could be used to produce drones close to the battlefield, the company added.
General Atomics is working with Divergent to adapt, apply and qualify its automobile industry-qualified technology to aircraft production.
“Leveraging innovations in AI, 3D printing and automation, Daps can be used to build the underlying structure for virtually any vehicle – whether land, sea, air, or space – better, faster and more cost efficiently than traditional manufacturing,” said Kevin Czinger, Divergent founder and CEO.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems president David R Alexander said: “Throughout our 30 years of designing and developing advanced UAS, GA-ASI has been focused on implementing new capabilities into our manufacturing process.
“We’re working with Divergent to integrate their technology as part of our Additive Design and Manufacturing Centre of Excellence strategy, with the goal of optimising our design and manufacturing processes and providing next generation UAS at the lowest cost.”
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