Some U.S. military systems are more than 50 years old, which means the parts to fix them are not easy to find, if they still exist. The introduction of 3D printing helped with remaking replacement parts. However, it was not a perfect solution because of limitations with materials.
The Air Force looked for faster, more creative solutions. A Southern California startup, Machina Labs, created a strong contender for a solution. The Robotic Craftsman is a 3D shaper that uses robotic fingers to shape pieces of sheet metal into parts. Its benefit is that the same machine can build countless parts, instead of only building one or two.
Machina Labs said this capability is key for one-off replacement parts.
“Throughout history, metal craftsmen had this almost unlimited agility, they could pick up a different tool, learn a new craft, and make something new,” Mike Polino, Machina Labs’ vice president of product, said. “Maybe a helmet one day, a shield the next day, a tea kettle, the day after that. So in the modern manufacturing context, we needed a lot more scale. So we got rid of all that agility in favor of a fixed tooling that would help us stamp out many, many, many parts.”
The machine can quickly learn how to shape each required part. Therefore, it reduces the time a military vehicle is out of service. Machina Labs said it can deliver parts in a week that used to take a year to construct.
Machina Labs installed the first Robotic Craftsman at Warner Robins Air Force Base in Georgia in November 2023. That base is home to the Air Materiel Command’s Logistics Complex. It supplies replacement parts for everything from engines to missiles. In the last six months, the robots gathered information to create new parts even more efficiently.
“They’re absolutely leading the charge in new techniques and sustainment,” Polino said. “They’ve helped us collect requirements and been good thought partners and also just generally helped fund some of the R&D which is really important to us.”
A report from Defense One said the Air Force needs $1.5 billion in parts for the next fiscal year. These new machines help reduce repair time for the thousands of pieces of equipment currently out of service. Machina Labs said the next step for the robot is to deploy it into combat situations for even faster repairs.
“Our current version of the system actually folds up into a standard shipping container format, and can be deployed anywhere by rail or by plane,” Polino said. “Being forward, being in contested environments, being able to inspect and then reproduce parts that maybe go through battle damage is a big part of our mission.”
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