Building a 'Swarm' of 3D-Printing Robots

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Austin Williams, co-founder of AMBOTS, a company scaling up the way 3D digital printing is accomplished.

Imagine the interior of a cavernous structure, a factory or airplane hangar, for example. And inside this spacious room, a swarm of robots, dozens, if not hundreds of autonomous machines, scaled up to the size of giant forklifts, are working together, like army ants, to build a commercial airplane, layer by layer, instead of assembling and riveting metal sheets.

Sounds utopian, but Austin Williams and his colleagues at AMBOTS beg to differ.

"What we've done is made 3D printing scalable, so you don't have to buy individual machines to print different sizes, and you don't have to shell out a ton of cash if you need a big printing system," Williams says in this month's Short Talks From the Hill, a research podcast of the University of Arkansas.

Williams is co-founder and chief software architect for the startup technology company located at the Arkansas Research and Technology Park. He and co-founders Wenchao Zhou, who serves as chief technology officer, and Lucas Marques, chief design officer, are building a "swarm" of robots that can work cooperatively to perform complex manufacturing tasks, including 3D printing, automated assembly, screw-driving, cutting, machining and welding.

"Right now, we're trying to figure out the minimum set of robots needed for a generic digital factory," says Zhou, who is also a professor of mechanical engineering and director of the AM3 Lab, where he, Marques and Williams are working on the future of manufacturing.

To listen to Williams talk about AMBOTS and cooperative 3D printing and manufacturing, go to ResearchFrontiers.uark.edu, the home of research news at the University of Arkansas, or visit the "On Air" and "Programs" link at KUAF.com. Previous podcasts can be found under the Multimedia link at ResearchFrontiers.uark.edu.

Short Talks From the Hill highlights research and scholarly work at the University of Arkansas. Each segment features a university researcher discussing his or her work. Thank you for listening!