Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No … it's a 3D-printing aerial drone.
Just ask Talib Alhinai, an Emirati PhD student at Imperial College London, whose mission is to help develop flying robots that improve people's lives.
The 22-year-old is part of a team studying innovative, occasionally outlandish uses for drones, including one that can ‘3D-print' while hovering in mid-air.
Mr Alhinai, who is from Abu Dhabi, explained his work while standing outside a university room labelled the "Super Top Secret Rocket Lab”.
Inside, drones of varying sizes are scattered around, alongside some bulky lab testing equipment, including a fume cupboard and submersion tank. The drones are the sort readily available in shops, but have been modified by students for uses such as 3D-printing, or even diving underwater.
Drones might conjure up images of controversial military attacks launched from afar, but the Imperial College students are looking for healthier applications.
"The word ‘drone' has a negative connotation,” said Mr Alhinai. "But it's important to establish that not all drones are bad … There is huge potential.”
The prototype flying 3D-printer was created by Mr Alhinai and a team of colleagues working under Dr Mirko Kovac, director of the university's Aerial Robotics Laboratory.
Inspired by swiftlets, tiny birds that build nests using their own saliva, the four-propeller drone can mix two chemicals to create a foam that, when ‘printed', expands and sets.
The technology has a range of potential uses, from fixing roofs to repairing gas pipelines with pinpoint accuracy and carrying out tasks in areas that are hostile to humans.
Swarms of the drones could be used to build structures after a natural disaster, or to remove nuclear waste or other hazardous objects by printing on a sticky foam and lifting the item away.
"You can have a ‘sacrificial drone' that comes in and picks something up. And if it blows up, you only lose a drone,” said Mr Alhinai.
A prototype of the 3D-printing flying robot has been on display at the Science Museum in London, under a sign asking "Would you let this drone fix your home?”
But before it got there it was already making an impression — quite literally — in the robotics lab where Mr Alhinai works. During testing, the computer-controlled drone shot up into the ceiling — leaving four marks where the propellers struck.
"We were trying to send it one metre up [in the air],” said Mr Alhinai. "By mistake we pressed 10 instead of one … And then it shot up into the roof and got stuck.”
Mr Alhinai joined Imperial College in 2013, just one week after he graduated in Mechatronic Engineering — a mix of mechanics and electronics — from the University of Manchester.
He says his family had been "really encouraging” in his studies, with his father visiting London last week to see drones in action, and to visit the exhibit at the nearby Science Museum.
Mr Alhinai's studies are sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Government, and he hopes to return to the UAE after he finishes his PhD in 2016, to continue his work developing drones that can help humans. "I would like to go and give something back,” he says.
Mr Alhinai pointed to initiatives in the UAE such as the ‘Drones for Good' Award, launched last February, which invited ideas for practical uses for unmanned aerial vehicles. There are also UAE government plans to use drones to deliver official documents and packages to citizens.
But there have been concerns raised over the use of unmanned vehicles in the UAE. Earlier this month, air traffic over Dubai was suspended for 55 minutes due to recreational drones being flown into the flight paths. As a result, the local aviation authority plans to issue new regulations on the use of drones, it was reported.
Maximilian Haas-Heger, a 21-year-old undergraduate student in the same department as Mr Alhinai, agreed that there needs to be greater legislation governing the use of drones, particularly around sensitive areas like airports and power stations.
Mr Haas-Heger's computer is next to the university lab's ‘flight arena', where the drones are taken for test flights. The area resembles a giant, blacked-out cricket-practice cage, surrounded by safety nets to catch any stray drones.
"It makes me feel a lot safer,” says Mr Haas-Heger of the protective netting.
The student, in his fourth and final year of an aeronautic engineering course, helped develop the computer scripts that control the 3D-printing drone. It's complicated, he says — but fun too.
"I personally really like writing something on the computer, and seeing it applied to a physical system in real life. That's something that I find absolutely incredible,” says Mr Haas-Heger.
Originally from Germany, Mr Haas-Heger has lived in the UK for seven years, and hopes to continue his studies as a PhD student.
Like his Emirati friend, he sees great humanitarian and civil uses of drones. In the future, even our pizza could be delivered by drone, he says: "You think it's crazy now. But you'll see …”
Source: The National