The team at Helyx, headquartered in Italy, is exploring the limits of generative design with their 3D printed drone, a lightweight racing quadcopter created for agility and speed, and the ability to travel in freestyle flight. A pilot project built around the study and use of 3D design and 3D printing in relation to UAVs, Helyx has been centered around creating a new First-Person View (FPV) drone and putting it into action.
- Reduce air resistance
- Handle extreme accelerations
- Survive crashes
“Although it can be virtually printed with any powder-bed AM technology, we chose HP for the right balance of cost and strength,” Tommaso Pardini, Project Manager and Principle Designer of Helyx, told 3DPrint.com. “PA11 is also a particularly suitable material as it can withstand impacts (which are pretty common while flying with FPV drones).”
Presented at Formnext last year with Autodesk and HP, the drone is now being produced for clients on an on-demand basis. If you are interested, contact helyx@sigmaingegneria.com.
3D printing and electronics accompany one another in many different forms today, offering scientists, engineers, and users on so many levels incredible opportunity to create new prototypes, parts, and entire systems that may not have been possible previously through conventional methods. Offering benefits such as greater affordability, speed in production, and the ability to create at will (and often, whim) without having to wait for a middleman, 3D printing means that users now have freedom never before experienced in manufacturing.
Many drone enthusiasts—from around the globe—are also interested in trying their hand at 3D printing (along with other related new technologies), resulting in numerous projects, from drones created to help save crops, to those affixed to robotic components for fixing asphalt, to drones that could be responsible for autonomous surveying activity.
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[Source / Images: Helyx]