As soon as per quarter, the Joint Interagency Discipline Experimentation (JIFX) crew on the US Naval Postgraduate Faculty holds weeklong workouts devoted to demonstrating rising applied sciences seen by the Division of Protection (DoD) as essential to nationwide safety. Held at California’s Camp Roberts, JIFX week supplies a possibility for collaboration throughout the navy branches, and between the navy and the personal sector.
The latest JIFX week, held in February, featured amongst its members Firestorm Labs, the corporate behind the xCell containerized additive manufacturing (AM) system, designed for tactically deployed drone manufacturing. In January, Firestorm landed a five-year, $100 million Air Drive contract to develop 3D printed drones.
At February’s JIFX week, an xCell unit powered by startup Chariot Protection’s cell high-voltage battery-powered generator churned out components for Firestorm’s Tempest drones. The printed components included nosecones with digital camera ports, fuselage segments for carrying payloads between 10 and 20 kilos over ranges of 100-675 miles, and diverse wing and tail segments.
Picture courtesy of Firestorm Labs through LinkedIn
In a DVIDS article concerning the workouts, the director of JIFX, retired US Military Particular Forces Colonel Michael Richardson, stated, “This February occasion was probably the most participating experimentation week since earlier than the pandemic. A part of that was the climate. The periodic heavy rain and robust winds gave our collaborating companies the identical difficult circumstances their applied sciences might be anticipated to carry out in if a part of the fleet or pressure. …A number of companies achieved firsts with their techniques and practically everybody collaborated in an ad-hoc experiment or two that demonstrated their capability to deal with operational challenges extra successfully collectively.”
The VP of {hardware} at Firestorm Labs, Invoice Buel, stated, “The thought for xCell got here to fruition in order that we may manufacture our drone on the edge in a contested logistics setting. However throughout growth, we realized there’s additionally a much wider want for xCell as producer for spare components and different drones. It doesn’t even should be our drones. So, we actually embrace that. We now have taken an operator first strategy, and we wish to empower the operator to make this really modular.”
Picture courtesy of Daniel Linehan, NPS, through DVIDS
Over the course of just about a decade, the US navy — and the US Navy, particularly — has proven rising curiosity in utilizing AM to allow expeditionary manufacturing models, with containerized techniques driving the success of firms like SPEE3D. Now, that basis seems to be hitting an inflection level as frontline drone manufacturing turns into an evermore essential functionality within the wake of conflicts in Ukraine and the Center East.
In that vein, expeditionary models might take over from rocket motors as “the large factor” for AM within the protection contract world, which might give Firestorm Labs an honest shot at turning into the following Ursa Main. Curiously, in an interview from final yr with Ursa Main co-founder (and then-CEO) Joe Laurienti, Laurienti advised me that drones are one of many areas the corporate is seeking to discover down the highway, suggesting the potential for collaboration between Firestorm and Ursa.
Additionally it is price mentioning that, on the February JIFX week, a laser weapon system (LWS) was used for the primary time, which succeeded at destroying Group 1 UAS techniques (totally different from these produced by Firestorm). Alongside using lasers to supply the Firestorm drones, that is solely the most recent growth to focus on how essential fiber lasers are to US provide chains, a problem I wrote about at first of 2024, and which appears poised to solely turn into extra related within the present commerce conflict setting.
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