3D printed drone technology has been an emerging area over the past year, with military surveillance use seeing a particular boom.
为了增加最近的发展drone delivery系统和swarming drones目的是空气掉落,美国海军陆战队CPL。Rhet McNealhas developed a hand-launched fixed wing drone, with the help of NexLog (the US Marine Corps’ “Next Generation Logistics innovation group”, in conjunction with Penn State university) and Autodesk.
Autodesk is a CAD design development software company that additionally offers residencies to developers with full access of professional tools and advice at theirpurpose built Pier 9 workshop in San Francisco, California.
At Pier 9 McNeal used product development software Inventor to refine his design, before turning to Netfabb to turn the 3D prototype visualisation into an actual 3D printed model: “the scout”, eventually winning first prize in the “Marine’s Logistics Innovation Challenge”.
3D Expendables
There are several ways in which this is important according to the requirements of the end user.
First of all, as McNeal notes, very few marines are authorised to use the current standard issue drones for use on the battlefield due to their cost (anything between $34,000 and $50,000).
While there is a growing demand in drones for surveillance operations, that demand is low in proportion to the ready supply materials for the scout drone. McNeal’s 3D printed drone is easier to replace (in the case of a crash), but also has a significantly lower cost of $613.
While the existing Wasp and Raven drones do the job in the air, any accident within the air or on the ground will be much more costly than the Scout.
增加海军陆战队无人机的数量将要求它们更加便携。麦克尼尔（McNeal）声称，他自己的设计可以分为四个部分，以快速拆卸和重新组装。
最后，通过忽略在更昂贵的无人机中发现的过时功能，可以改善该技术的可访问性。可访问性带来安全风险。然而，以前的军事无人机开发人员已经考虑了如何缓解这些.
Frontline action, frontline development
While currently a limited venture, it is likely that the project, now in the hands of the not-for-profit Mitre Corp, will see wider scale distribution.
By cutting out the need to outsource military technology, any end user with the necessary training and technological knowledge can directly develop tools that meet the exact needs of themselves and their serving colleagues.
有了更多的访问开发人员工具和研讨会，最终用户定制可以在不久的将来看到更多的开发项目，在更广泛的扇区中。
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特色图片显示了麦克尼尔（McNeal）的3D打印侦察无人机。通过Autodesk的照片。
