US Army Tests 3D Printed Small Drones for Surveillance of “Invisible” Threats

US Army officials recently told military news outlet Task & Purpose that, at an exercise in Poland this month, the branch will test small 3D printed drones for surveilling potential threats “that cannot be detected with a camera alone.” The drones include sensors capable of detecting targets’ electromagnetic signatures — cell phones, radar, WiFi, etc.

Lt. Col. Aaron Ritzema, commander of the 2nd Multi-Domain Effects Battalion (2dMDTF), based in Germany, said that the battalion has printed seven such drones so far and plans to send one or two of them to the exercises in Poland. The team lead for 2dMDTF’s innovation lab, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Chris Lehr, speaking to the military news outlet, said the project only began testing the new drones in early April. Initial tests were unsuccessful, but thanks to the feedback gained, the lab has already gone on to execute over 10 successful tests since then.

According to Lehr, the specific aim of the project is to ultimately show how additive manufacturing (AM) and other advanced manufacturing methods enable soldiers to autonomously build drone systems at a discount of around 90 percent compared to commercially sourced alternatives. Moreover, Ritzema noted that this isn’t just about saving costs but also about restrictions on parts procured from strategic competitors. When Task & Purpose asked the commander if he was referring to components made in China, he answered, “Something like that.”

This news comes just after the head of US Army Futures Command, General James Rainey, told an audience at a military gathering that the branch is currently assessing its potential to use AM to enable autonomous mass drone production. In his comments, Rainey also cited the need to reduce costs as a major driver behind the initiative.

Chief Warrant Officer 2 Chris Lehr told Task & Purpose, “What we know to be true now is that there are never enough [drones]. There’s never enough of them on the forward line of troops. There’s never enough of them in production.

“If DoD does increase its reliance on 3D printed drones, the organization will likely have to take active measures to change the procurement process in order to fully benefit from the new processes: per Lehr, “When we say we produced seven aircraft in eight months, at least 90 to 120 days of that was just waiting on paperwork to be completed so we can actually put these things in the air.”

“Despite the difficulties inherent in changing procurement procedures at DoD, the urgency of the task in this case may call for unique measures to be taken, with Ritzema claiming that, “Even though we’re doing this at scale or at range that we would do in an operational environment, our ability to do this by ourselves in advance of the Army fielding this capability is absolutely foundational to our ability to actually fight this formation in the future.”

So, in the words of officials at DoD who have the power to move the needle, the future of American success in warfare depends to no small degree on the US military’s ability to 3D print drones. Now that’s a demand signal!

However much progress the DoD has made with its advanced manufacturing strategy over the last several years — and it has made quite a bit — there has still been a lingering sense that the military needs exactly the right project to unify the whole endeavor and get it moving according to its own momentum. Matthew Sermon has done an impressive job of that with the submarines program, but shipbuilding could be too gargantuan long-range a task to work as an opening shot. The applications are there, they just still take a bit too long in a world of ever-shortening attention spans.

Drones, though, are kind of the perfect application to qualify as an organizing principle for a military advanced manufacturing strategy, and more and more people in DoD seem to have caught on to this. By no means does this suggest that the defense sector should take its foot off the gas in terms of deploying AM for other applications. Quite oppositely, I think that DoD’s long-term ability to maximize AM deployment across all applications may be best served if an AM program for drones serves as the new starting point.

Images courtesy of Private First Class Brent Lee/US Army