Machina Labs Awarded Air Force Contract for Robotic Composites Manufacturing
LOS ANGELES—The U.S. Air Force has awarded a $1.6 million contract to Machina Labs to advance and accelerate the development of the company’s robotic technology for manufacturing metal tooling for high-rate production of composites.
Specically, Machina Labs will focus creating metal tooling for fast-cure, out-of-autoclave composite processing. The Air Force is looking for ways to increase output and decrease cost of composite parts for both manned and unmanned aircraft. Depending on size and materials, tooling for making composite parts for aircraft can cost more than $1 million each and require eight to 10 months of lead time.