Industry Summary Articles

From the Autodesk blog:

“The first artifact that NASA has printed using this approach is a Jersey barrier – one of the modular barricades, typically made of concrete or plastic, that you often see separating lanes of traffic near road construction zones. In order to withstand vehicle impact, Jersey barriers must be tough and durable – characteristics that are desirable for human dwellings as well. So far, the regolith/plastic composite has proven to be strong and dependable, in addition to being relatively lightweight.

Based on NASA specifications, Autodesk’s Advanced Consulting team designed the barrier using tools such as Fusion 360 and PowerMill to comply with structural as well as robotic extrusion requirements while achieving significant weight reduction. Autodesk also developed the software to control the industrial robot arm – fit with a specialized end effector designed by NASA – to enable free-form additive manufacturing without the need for outside support or scaffolding.

‘Additive manufacturing technology has the potential to revolutionize the way we do construction here on Earth, too,’ said Massimiliano Moruzzi of Autodesk’s computational science research group. ‘If we can repurpose plastic pollution and use readily available natural resources to robotically print houses on Mars, we can use the same approach to sustainably build streets, sidewalks, and even playgrounds here at home.’”

To read the full article with graphics, please visit http://blogs.autodesk.com/inthefold/nasa-and-autodesk-experiment-with-3d-printing-robots-to-build-human-habitats-on-other-planets/

To view the blog entry, please click here.

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