Communications of the ACM
It’s Not the Jetsons, But It May Be Coming Soon
New technologies are revolutionizing manufacturing.
Credit: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images
Advances in technologies such as robots, multidimensional printers, and cutting-edge polymers are ushering in a new era of manufacturing. These technologies will transform what manufacturers can produce, the worker's role, and the products available to consumers.
3D printing creates three-dimensional objects using plastics, metals, and other materials in a device that extrudes the material in thin layers onto a flat surface. Substances can be added at precise points with 3D printing to make objects more or less flexible as required, offering an advantage over traditional manufacturing.
These 3D technologies are already hitting the market, with some dentists printing permanent crowns for damaged teeth and some expectant mothers in Japan receiving 3D models of their fetuses instead of ultrasound photos.
Researchers are looking to take technology into the fourth dimension, time, as well. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Self-Assembly Lab director Skylar Tibbits says 4D printers would create objects that change over time in a process called self-reconfiguration. The process involves integrating a black, static material with a white, active material in 3D printing, and submerging the material in water. The white material expands in a manner determined by the black material’s pre-programmed range of motion, with movement and its limits programmed into the material itself.
From The Washington Post
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