The U.S. Army is turning to robotics to build barracks and infrastructure for soldiers, officials said Monday, noting that technology partnerships with industry are helping modernize military infrastructure through faster and more affordable construction.
As the Army pushes for faster contracting and sustained investment in modernization efforts, it is turning to advanced technologies to support its mission, industry members and Army officials said at the Association of the United States Army annual convention on Oct. 13.
One way the Army is doing that is by using 3D printing to build infrastructure that meets the Department of Defense (DOD) – which the Trump administration has rebranded as the Department of War – code standards.
“For the DOD, we’ve printed transit training, barracks, innovation centers, robotics labs, and a variety of fortified infrastructure, really showcasing that a robotic printer can deploy to a site and … it can turn around, and it can turn around and crank out a lot,” said Bella Nowland, director of defense business development at construction technologies company ICON.
The robotics used by ICON to print infrastructure “doesn’t need to sleep,” Nowland said, noting that the technology has improved construction efficiency for the DOD.
Most recently, the technology helped build three transit training barracks, a process that required new code development to build “clean, safe, and durable” living quarters for soldiers.
Using robotics-printed housing isn’t a new concept, but it’s young – ICON created the first fully 3D printed neighborhood outside of Austin, Texas, featuring 100 houses. The houses are built by adding layer upon layer from a digital file.
Those types of partnerships with industry are important as the Army looks to modernize its legacy infrastructure at speed, said Maj. Gen. John T. Reim, joint program executive officer for armaments and ammunition and commanding general of Picatinny Arsenal.
“Acquisition is a team sport, and it’s been incredible,” said Reim. “I’ve had the privilege of doing nine ribbon-cutting ceremonies here in the last year. As you know, we’re bringing new capabilities online, we’re replacing legacy production methods.”
The major general said that the Army is currently overhauling its World War II-era munitions facilities with automation, modular production lines, and data-driven manufacturing to make them safer, more flexible, and capable of sustaining output beyond wartime surges.
Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Gavin Lawrence, deputy chief of staff for logistics and operations at the Army Materiel Command (AMC), said that industry has brought technological capabilities such as digital engineering and digital twins. This allows the Army to map processes, increase workflow efficiency, and remove human error from operations.
“You know, AMC, we’re not where we need to be, but I’ll tell you, we have a number of initiatives … We’re looking at how we can use advanced manufacturing to repair parts, getting the right to repair and the appropriate authorities associated with that, to working with organizations now here to build digital twins of our platforms, so we can reverse engineer and get tech data that we need,” Lawrence said.