The use of additive manufacturing (popularly known as 3D printing) has helped revolutionise product development at South African defence company Airbus DS Optronics. It is one of the technologies adopted by the company to enable it to carry out rapid prototyping of new products.

The company is renowned for its electro-optical sensor payloads, fitted to fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters and unmanned air vehicles. "Since 2011, when we started with additive manufacturing, we've produced four new payloads," company principal mechanical engineer Gerhard Smit told Engineering News Online on Friday. "Before that, between 2002 and 2010, we produced three."

"On a payload, rapid prototyping has reduced the development time from three years to nine months," he explained. This includes the use of a five-axis Haas milling machine, computer modelling, simulation and streamlined administration as well as additive manufacturing. "Of that [27 month] reduction, about 9 to 12 months are due to additive manufacturing alone."

The company has its own in-house additive manufacturing capability. However, when there is a large amount of work to be done, it also contracts out. Manufacture of 3D printed production parts is also contracted out, as the company does not yet have the type of machine required for this.

"We typically produce between 4 kg and 5 kg of rapid prototyping material a month," he reported. "The material comes in cartridges of 1.5 kg, each costing R15 000. It's expensive but it is worth it!"

In his presentation to the Rapid Product Development Association of South Africa on Friday, Smit pointed out that electro-optical systems had previously taken years to develop because of their complexity and the interdependence between all the components that made up the system. These could include visible-wavelength, infrared and thermal imaging devices, laser pointers and laser rangefinders. In addition, the payload had to be stabilised to eliminate the vibration from the carrying aircraft (an especially severe problem with helicopters).

These systems are developed primarily for defence and police missions and must go through the complex development process typical for defence systems. This, he noted, starts with the requirement review, followed by the concept design review, then by the detailed design review, the construction and qualification of the prototype system, the development of the production standard system and the start of production, and the development and implementation of the support programme for the operational system. Rapid prototyping had greatly accelerated this process.

Airbus DS Optronics is 70%-owned by Airbus Defence and Space, part of Europe's Airbus Group, and 30%-owned by South African State-owned defence industrial group Denel. It is based in Centurion, just south of Pretoria.