The Drone Bird Company has developed a line of drones that mimic birds of prey like falcons in both outward appearance and flight pattern. These drone birds can be purchased or hired as a service to scare away real birds from airports, farms, power plants and other settings where their presence could be a nuisance or a hazard. The fuselages for these drones were initially produced through hand layup of glass fiber and epoxy which was time-consuming and not scalable. The Drone Bird Company worked with Parts on Demand to move into production through selective laser sintering (SLS) 3D printing, ultimately adopting a glass sphere-filled polymer from Advanced Laser Materials (ALM) to achieve lightweight, durable drone bodies that can be made repeatably at scale.

This episode of The Cool Parts Show brought to you by Carpenter Additive: http://www.carpenteradditive.com

LEARN MORE ABOUT

The Drone Bird Company https://www.thedronebird.com/
Parts on Demand, contract manufacturer for 3D printed components of this drone https://partsondemand.eu/
Advanced Laser Materials (ALM), the EOS subsidiary that supplies the glass-filled material https://www.advancedlasermaterials.com/
Another example of a drone that relies on 3D printing, in this case both metal and polymerhttps://www.additivemanufacturing.med...
Other examples where 3D printing makes use of biomimicry of:

shark scales https://www.additivemanufacturing.med...

structures inside butterfly wings https://www.additivemanufacturing.med...

snail shells https://www.additivemanufacturing.med...

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0:00 3D Printed Drone Bird
0:54 What is the Drone Bird?
2:34 Why does it work?
3:58 Considerations for Manufacturing
6:10 Why 3D Printing for Production
7:05 Why Selective Laser Sintering
8:20 Venturing into New Materials
10:35 Optimizing the Design
12:25 How Production is Changing
14:17 Why is the Drone Bird Cool?