Low Cost Flatpack Aircraft with Ultrasonic Additive Manufacturing

All forces in the DoD are increasing their use of unmanned aircraft. Everyone in the defense realm is seeking low-cost drone aircraft for limited mission sets due to soaring costs for frontline military aircraft.Ā One issue with having many attritable aircraft is that they are still relatively large and take up precious space when not being used. This idleness is often the case due to their limited mission set. This may not be an efficient use secure storage, particularly in forward operations. We believe that a solution is the use of a multifunctional, flat-pack aircraft. These relatively small volume flat packs may be shipped to forward storage areas, bivouac impromptu airfields, or stored in seaborn containers. When needed, they can be assembled very rapidly to form an overwhelming quantity of low-cost drone aircraft. A new type of 3D printing, Ultrasonic Additive Manufacturing (UAM), allows for multiple types of elements to be printed under thin aluminum aircraft skins. By combining several subsystems into a few flat panels, we can build an inexpensive, light weight, high performance aircraft that can be shipped, stored, and then assembled with limited semi-skilled manual labor. The goal of this program is to demonstrate the use of UAM printing to make multifunctional, flat aircraft components. These aircraft can be rapidly assembled in large quantities to launch an overwhelming attack against targets or saturate an air defense system. 3D printing via UAM is scalable from the micro-UAV (Class 1) to medium altitude long endurance (Class 4) vehicles and can produce subsystems for larger vehicles. The main objective of this Phase I project is to develop a new concept for airborne drone manufacture and deployment. While we have an aircraft configuration that is well suited for UAM flat pack manufacturing and delivery, we also need to meet with defense personnel to discuss possible applications and targeted development. The team will enhance the technology consideration by creating a more detailed design and a coupon demonstrating integrated components for a proof-of-concept. Specifically, the team will: Meet with the customer and stakeholders to discuss specific needs and objectives. Rough design an aircraft to meet customersÆ needs. Refine and begin to detail flat pack design specs using stakeholder needs and the capabilities of the UAM process. This analysis will seek to effectively answer the following questions: How to optimize the design by combining multiple UAM features in a single panel? What commercial off the shelf (COTS) components can be utilized? What does the customer specifically need that this aircraft can fulfill? With this configuration, what is the approximate assembly time and cost of the aircraft? Create an item to demonstrate that the UAM process can accomplish the design goals.