Machines have potential to be used in “variety of ways” including in emergencies and as protection from nuclear waste.
BBC News reported that engineers from Imperial College London, led by Dr Mirko Kovac, have developed and built “autonomous flying 3D printer drones” that could potentially be used in emergencies and to help to “protect people from nuclear waste”; using their ability to “print” sticky foam onto dangerous objects “before attaching themselves and lifting the hazard away”.
In addition, the engineers reportedly hope that the devices will eventually be able to print “nests in treetops to enable them to rest and recharge before continuing”; with the robots purportedly inspired by swiftlets – “birds that construct nests using their saliva”.
A video demonstration (which can be seen below) shows how a quadcopter (a drone with four rotors) is able to print the sticky foam onto a small block, which is then lifted and flown away by a hexacopter (a drone with six rotors) once the substance has set. It is in this way that researchers hope hazardous materials such as nuclear waste could be removed by the drones.
New Scientist reported that the devices act “almost entirely autonomously” and are guided by GPS; while the sticky foam is made of polyurethane.
Among other potential uses for the drones stated in the project’s abstract are “ad-hoc construction of first response structures in search-and-rescue scenarios” and “printing structures to bridge gaps in discontinuous terrain”.
Thomas J. Creedy, a PhD student working on the project at Imperial College London, said in a statement: “This is an exciting first step in the lab’s development of co-operative robotic systems for building structures inspired by the natural world.”
However, the project has received some criticism. Noel Sharkey, Emeritus Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the University of Sheffield, said: “This could hardly be called 3D printing, although it uses some of the components. However, the potential game changer in this application is their notion of using it to repair bridges and other construction works from the air.”