Not a Metal 3D Printer: Arizona Startup Rosotics Launches the Halo ‘Supercreator’

In one of the boldest additive manufacturing (AM) industry launches in some time, Rosotics, the Arizona-based startup specializing in making robotic production ecosystems for the space and defense sectors, has announced the release of the Halo “supercreator”. If you don’t know what a supercreator is, that’s because the Halo is the first of its kind.

Rosotics describes its supercreator approach to metal AM largely in terms of the intersection between AI and materials science. Controlled by the company’s HalOs software, the Halo welds metals with three electromagnetic printheads — the printhead design named “Mjolnir”, after Thor’s hammer — on proprietary, multi-axis gimbals.

According to Rosotics, HalOs enables sophisticated adjustment of the deposition process, based on data from prior builds, to maximize material performance. That is an especially significant feature for space, aerospace, and defense, which tend to have more exacting standards than other industries for end-use components.

The supercreator concept also encompasses advantages of the Halo including integrated post-processing and what Rosotics claims is a striking carbon footprint reduction of nearly 90 percent compared to wire arc AM. Targeted to customers like maritime and aerospace, the $950,000 machine will begin shipping in August 2024.

In a press release about the launch of the Halo supercreator, the founder and CEO of Rosotics, Christian LaRosa, said, “Halo is not a 3D printer in the way you would think of it, as a tool. It is built as the platform to make 3D printing sound like a primitive phrase. This is a system able to dominantly command metallurgical science, by understanding it. This is historically significant, on the order of describing the emergence of a profound means of creation unlike any that we have known before. I’m excited to see it working in the field.”

Well! However overly ambitious that may sound, AM’s trajectory is certainly poised to be altered quite momentously by the evolution of robotic-arm based systems, as well as by the increased integration of AI into the build process. Thus, a system that can successfully capitalize on intertwining both of those aspects would indeed be quite transformative.

It will take some time before anyone is able to say, one way or the other, if the Halo is that system, but I respect Rosotics’ chutzpah. I also think that Rosotics is releasing the Halo at exactly the right time to seize on positive momentum in US reshoring of EV and green energy supply chains. Obviously, few companies will be able to afford a Halo, but the companies who can are likely to be concentrated in industries working on those sorts of strategically critical, generational projects.

Images courtesy of Rosotics