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LASER-produced electronic ants which collaborate with each other were the focus at this year’s Hannover Fair.
Festo, an Esslingen company, demonstrated its BionicANTs, which can work together on tasks that they cannot accomplish alone. Due to the need for the BionicANTs to be compact, and have functional exteriors, they were created by LaserMicronics using LPKF’s Laser Direct Structuring (LDS) processes.
The BionicANTs need to carry electronic components and traces on their bodies, which required them to be Mechatronic Integrated Devices (MID), merging mechanical and electronic functions. In the LDS process, a laser beam writes the desired structures on a plastic body, which is produced by injection moulding of an LDS-doped plastic.
The traces are then built up in an electroless metallisation bath, thereby yielding three-dimensional moulded interconnect devices.
Because 3D MIDs serve as component substrates, antennas and interconnects at the same time, they reduce the space requirements and weights of component assemblies. They are commonly used as antennas in smartphones and tablet computers.
Thanks to laser technology, it is possible to change the circuit layout without using any additional tools simply by changing the patterning layout data.
In the case of the BionicANTs, Festo created the body and the legs by 3D printing. These components were then coated with LPKF ProtoPaint LDS, a paint containing LDS additives to allow further processing of the coated component as an LDS-doped plastic, allowing traces and electronic components to be placed right on the “skin”. LaserMicronics performed the process development and production tasks.
With the 3D MID technology, it was possible to accommodate all mechanical and electronic functions on a product just 13.5 cm in length. The bionic technology demonstrator shows how autonomous individual components in a networked system can comply with different rules and still work together to solve a complex task.