Category: 3D Printer

Researchers at Imperial College in London have developed a 3D-printing system that uses multiple drones to build vertical structures while in flight. 

By Mark Crawford

Robotic additive manufacturing methods are being retooled for use in the construction industry. There are currently two ways to use 3D printing in construction: 3D-printing structural components off site, then transporting those pieces on site for assembly, or using ground-based 3D printers to produce structures on site. But ground-based printers are limited in the size of the structures they can print.

Researchers from Imperial College London and the Swiss Federal Laboratories of Materials Science and Technology have developed a system that eliminates this scalability issue by using fleets of drones equipped with 3D-printing systems. Large and complex structures could potentially be entirely built with multiple drone-based printing systems that operate from the construction site.

 
The research team, led by Mirko Kovac, a professor aerial robotics at Imperial College, calls the new process “Aerial Additive Manufacturing” (Aerial-AM), in which a fleet of drones collaborate in flight to create large, intricate structures. A multi-drone approach allows for autonomous 3D printing under human supervision and real-time assessment of printed geometry as construction progresses. Drones can also monitor and adjust their building capabilities on the fly in real time.

Continue reading… “Drone Fleet Uses 3D Printing to Build Large-Scale Structures”

D printing can potentially be a faster and cheaper method of building homes. But it may require more than technology to take these dwellings mainstream.

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To make housing more affordable in the U.S., we need more of it. Millions of additional units, by most estimates.

This shortage of housing has a range of complex causes, but the high cost of construction — which rose even further thanks to pandemic-driven labor and supply constraints — is definitely not helping.

An idea from the tech world holds the potential to make the building process more efficient: 3D printing. Startups have been experimenting with the technology in large-scale construction, and now there’s a push to take it mainstream.

Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with journalist Rachel Monroe, who took a deep dive into the topic in this week’s issue of The New Yorker.

The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Continue reading… “Affordable-housing hopes are building around 3D printed homes”

University College London (UCL) have developed an exciting new 3D printing technique: “volumetric 3D printing” that lets the pharmaceutical industry customize drugs – including shape, size, dosage, and release – according to each patient’s individual needs.

BY MARK ALLINSON 

In turn, medical professionals may eventually be able to use 3D printing to “print” prescription drugs for patients in-office in the future. Not only does 3D printing promise to improve personalized medicine, but it’s also set to drastically cut cost and waste in the process. 

Solving race and gender inequalities with personalized medicine

3D printing may reduce or eliminate the problem of race and gender inequality in prescription drug manufacturing. “Currently, medications are developed especially for white adult men, which means that all women and children have an excessive prescription for their bodies”, explains Fred Parietti, PhD, co-founder and CEO of Multiply Labs, a developer of advanced robotics technology that manufactures personalized prescription drugs.

“This fact underlines the importance of the advent of personalized medicines, as well as highlighting the individuality of each patient, since the error in the dosage of certain active ingredients can even lead to the malfunctioning of some treatments”.

Continue reading… “New 3D Printer That Creates Custom Prescription Drugs Developed by University College London”

Appearances of cultured meat models without and with treatment of natural food coloring (beet) CREDIT: Jie Sun (Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University)

by John Anderer

SUZHOU, China — Lab-grown, or cultured, meats represent a promising, more environmentally friendly alternative to actual meat from livestock, but high production costs have hindered its widespread use. Now, however, research out of Singapore and China reports the discovery of a way to use food waste to make cultured meat, which would reduce production costs considerably.

Cultured meat is made using animal muscle stem cells grown on a scaffold, which improves the environment for the cells by enabling transport of nutrients and allowing for the generation of texture and structure. Without this approach, the meat is more likely to end up resembling lumpy mashed potatoes.

Unique scaffolds can be created using an emerging 3D-printing technology known as Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) printing. These scaffolds become part of the meat product, so they have to be edible themselves, and are thus usually made using animal products such as gelatin and collagen, or synthetic materials. This is expensive to produce. Establishing a more affordable way to create edible inks for printing would be a major boon for the cultured meat movement.

Continue reading… “New 3D-printing ink could make lab-grown meat much cheaper to produce”

Efforts have resulted in very relevant retina tissue models of degenerative eye diseases

Scientists are now using patient stem cells and 3D bioprinting to produce eye tissue that will advance understanding of the mechanisms of blinding diseases. The research team from the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health in the US, printed a combination of cells that form the outer blood-retina barrier—eye tissue that supports the retina’s light-sensing photoreceptors.

The technique provides a theoretically unlimited supply of patient-derived tissue to study degenerative retinal diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD). 

“We know that AMD starts in the outer blood-retina barrier,” said Kapil Bharti, Ph.D., who heads the NEI Section on Ocular and Stem Cell Translational Research. “However, mechanisms of AMD initiation and progression to advanced dry and wet stages remain poorly understood due to the lack of physiologically relevant human models.”

Continue reading… “US explores application of 3D bioprinting to create eye tissue”

A close-up of a printed scaffold for a heart valve. The different structures that ensure the appropriate biomechanics are clearly visible.

Researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the University of Western Australia used melt electrowriting have created the first-ever 3D printed heart valve with a heterogeneous structure as is seen in human heart valve tissue. This heterogeneous property is essential to the proper opening and closing of valves, so the development holds great potential for the future of artificial valve replacement, especially in children who need adaptability as they grow.

The team developed a platform that precisely prints customized patterns and pattern combinations, allowing the team to perfect various mechanical properties within a single scaffold, as well as created software that eased the difficulty in creating complex heart valve structures.

“Our goal is to engineer bioinspired heart valves that support the formation of new functional tissue in patients,” says Petra Mela, Professor of Medical Materials and Implants at TUM and a leader of the study. “Children would especially benefit from such a solution, as current heart valves do not grow with the patient and therefore have to be replaced over the years in multiple surgeries. Our heart valves, in contrast, mimic the complexity of native heart valves and are designed to let a patient’s own cells infiltrate the scaffold.”

Continue reading… “3D Printed Heart Valves Can Form New Tissue”

New biomaterial can regenerate bones and prevent infections

Scientists at the Universidad Católica de Valencia’s (UCV) Bioengineering and Biomaterials Laboratory in Spain have created a new porous biomaterial for 3D printing that can regenerate bones while also preventing infections. The biotech creations, which are custom-made for each case using 3D printing, include a bioactive alginate coating. This coating promotes bone regeneration and kills bacteria that can prevent bone formation from being completed.

Because the material is biodegradable, it eventually disappears from the body after the bone has been regenerated. The research was conducted on small animals, specifically rabbits. The following step will be to test larger animals and, eventually, humans.

The American Chemical Society’s ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces journal published the UCV study (ACS). The work was done in collaboration with a number of institutions.

Continue reading… “New biomaterial for 3D Printing can regenerate bones and prevent infections”