The US Marines benefit from ICON’s 3D printing technology

ICON is a construction technologies company based in Austin, Texas. With the help of proprietary 3D printing robotics, software and advanced materials, ICON mainly focuses on solving problems in the construction industry, by making it more cost-effective, among other things. The company has already reached a few significant milestones: ICON became the first company in America to secure a building permit for a 3D printed home and initiated the world’s first 3D printed community project. Recently, ICON announced their latest achievement – the first successful collaboration with the US Marine Corps and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU).

ICON partnered with the Defense Innovation Unit to help integrate 3D printing technologies into military operations. The main goal was to provide rapid construction capability to support military crisis response efforts. For this project, ICON’s 3D printing technology was used to build a vehicle hide structure for the US Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton. For this purpose, eight soldiers were trained to operate ICON’s massive Vulcan 3D printer. The aim of such training was to prepare the troops for a field demonstration, in which they would need to quickly build structures for potential army expeditions.

All image credits: ICON

ICON’s technology provides tablet-based system controls that allow even novice operators to deliver high-quality 3D printing. So, after only a few hours of field training, the soldiers learned to operate the complex equipment from start to finish – ICON’s experts remained present only to supervise. At the beginning of the project, ICON and the USMC set a realistic goal: to complete the print in 40-48 hours, with some expected loss of productivity for troubleshooting while getting the Marines up to speed. However, with a few recent automation upgrades that increased the precision of the material delivery system, the print was actually completed in 36 hours with virtually zero troubleshooting time!