3D Printed Unmanned Systems: Ultralight components at scale

Hi everyone! My name is Clara Quinquilla I'm Segment Manager here at HP and we are now in our drones dorner at our HP booth in Formnext 2025. So here we're going to be seeing several examples of why HP MJF technology is so widely used in this space. But basically, here are the three main reasons why:

• The first one is light weighting. We're going to see in a minute an example of why this factor is so important in the drone's space.
• The second reason is scalability and cost. We're going to see how our customers are taking advantage of this part of the technology thanks to HP MJF
• And finally, it's about how fast are we able to develop an unmanned system. We're going to see in a minute another example of that one.

Light weighting

Okay, so the first reason why our customers are using our technology in the drones' space is because light weighting. Why is this important? Because thanks to having a lightweight drone, we can increase the performance of that drone. When we are talking about performance, we are referring to having wider drones' range or having a wider capacity of payloads. So basically, how we do is by printing 3D parts that are thin. So, for example, this wing section is below one millimeter wall thickness. So, this is the main reason why you can almost see through light on this part. So, this is the first reason why HP MJF technology is used in the drones' space.

Scalability

So, the second reason why our technology is so widely used in this space is because of scalability. There are a lot of companies that are using several different additive manufacturing methods to produce drones, which is okay, but they usually face a problem when they need to scale. HP technology is a technology that was created for producing components on a scale. So, for example, we have this drone here. This is XperDron from the company “Serveo” in Spain. For you to have an idea, we can fit 20 of these drones in a bucket, which means that only with one HP Jet Fusion 3D Printer you could produce 14 drones a day, which is basically supporting the value proposition of scalability with HP MJF technology. So, if you've been to Formnext this year and you've been here in our drone's corner, you might have seen this massive drone that we have flying over our booth corner.

Fast-time cycles

So, to talk about fast time cycles, redesigns, I wanted to talk about this drone, which is called “BushRanger”. This drone is from a company that is called “The Eye Above”, and basically the main idea behind this drone is to protect illegal hunting to happen in South Africa. But the story that I wanted to tell you is about fast design developments. So, for you to have an idea, we have been supporting the “The Eye Above” to redesign this drone. So, within three months we have been running three different redesigns of the drone, which means designing a drone, printing it, testing it, and redesigning again. All these redesigns happened in less than three months. And right now, we have the latest version here, at our booth, which basically takes less than an hour to put together things to include in a snap fit and different other ways of putting together the different parts, which has been an exercise of redesign, re-engineering and retesting again. So, we have been seeing different reasons why this technology is so widely used in this market.

3D Printing materials

But I also wanted to take the time to share different materials that are used in this space. So come with me. We're going to be seeing the different applications that we have here at Formnext. Basically, this year we are showcasing different customer stories that come from all over the world. So, the first one that I wanted to talk about is “Rotor Riot”. This is a drone that is coming from a company that is called “Unusual Machines”. So, what I wanted to mention about this drone is the fact that it's using elastomer material, which in this case is TPU. The reason why this company is using TPU is because those are FPV drones, which stand for first person view drones. Basically, those kinds of drones are used to take videos in sport races at high speed. So basically, what they need is to protect the drone from breaking in case they might face an impact. So, this is a representative case of using TPU or any elastomer materials, also very convenient for the camera stability because for example, in this case here it goes to a GoPro camera. So, it's a good example. About the other use cases that we have here, pretty much all of them are using rigid materials. The most used material in this space is PA 12.

The main reason why is because it has a good balance between the mechanical properties and the price of the material. This is the main reason why it's so widely used, but the reality is that we can see here other materials, just like in this case here we can see an example of PA 12 white, which is very similar to PA 12, but in this case, it has better UV stability requirements. So, for example, when we are talking about drones that we don't want to post-process but are going to be facing the sun for a long hours, in those sort of cases, PA 12 white might be a good candidate. So, another material that we have that customers have using in this space is PA 11, which is the material that was used for this drone. Basically, it is a material that is used for those applications that require higher impact resistance. But if you want to know more about our materials, you can also check the drone's brochure in which you will find a catalog with all the materials that we have in the portfolio, and which benefits it might have for drone's applications. So as a wrap-up, the three main takeaways that you need to take with you are:

Take aways:

• First of all, this technology is used for creating lightweight structures in the drone's space.
• Second, the time to part is really impacted by using HP MJF technology.
• And third is all about scalability. So, this is a technology that will support the production of your device at the scale.
• And just to finish, I also wanted to mention that HP has a dedicated Drone Team, which is a big group of experts that is focusing on these applications. So, we are eager to support our customers. So, if you are facing a challenge in the drones' space, just reach us so that we can enable your application to be developed faster and lighter.