infratrac

[infratrac]

Self-repair, self-lubrication via 3D nanoprinting

Those 3D nanoprinted microcontainers that InfraTrac co-invented with University of Maryland? We can use them for self-repairing and self-lubricating maintenance - so if that lunar rover needs attention, we won't have to send somebody up to fix it. Contact info@infratrac.com to find out how you can license this exciting new technology, whether your sustainment needs are for aerospace, pipelines, or bridges. Patent pending.

[infratrac]

Check out Ruben Acevedo’s wonderful presentation of our joint work in 3D nanoprinting for drug dosing

[infratrac]

Featuring InfraTrac’s invited talk on The Chemistry of Industry 4.0 - virtually.

[infratrac]

More coverage, courtesy of Fabbaloo, because it’s pretty exciting news.

[infratrac]

Powder bed? No problem, thanks to collaborator Aerosint

               Do you need to ensure that parts are genuine?

Aerosint and InfraTrac Extending Chemical Tagging in Parts 3D Printed with Powder Bed Fusion

Some of the people 3D-printing aircraft and auto parts are not going to be licensed, careful, high-quality suppliers, and new approaches to protection will be required.

InfraTrac has an award-winning method for anti-counterfeiting in 3D printed parts – it adds a taggant (compatible chemical marker) during printing in a small, covert, subsurface spot. With instant field detection, the company’s tagging model provides chemical security to 3D printed parts. But until now, this was only limited to one material, making it unavailable for powder bed 3D printing, which is an important process for scalable industrial applications. But by teaming up with Aerosint, InfraTrac can now extend its model even further.

Aerosint and InfraTrac partner to prevent part counterfeiting in powder bed additive manufacturing

This collaboration makes Infratrac's patented chemical taggant approach available for LBPF additive manufacturing for the first time.  

Aerosint’s multi-material 3D printing technology extends InfraTrac’s chemical security into more production processes.

[infratrac]

Midwest conferences coming up

Heading west to Detroit for RAPID, the industrial 3D printing conference, where you can find us in partner Identify3D’s booth, 1459, showcasing end-to-end security solutions, May 20-23.

And pleased to be featured as a keynote speaker at Camo Analytics Solutions Conference in Minneapolis June 19, because field authentication depends on handheld instruments plus great analytics: https://www.camo.com/analyticsconference/#keynotes

[infratrac]

Industry 4.0 and sensor analytics

Stay tuned for some exciting news about InfraTrac and Camo Analytics, as we head off to Formnext.

[infratrac]

InfraTrac secures physical assets via SAP Blockchain

Ever endure endless delays for a flight that can’t take off until a repair part is delivered planeside? Or have to reschedule an appliance repair when the replacement item wasn’t on the tech’s truck?  Or found what you needed on the store shelf, only to realize its sell-by date has passed?  Supply chains affect us all… and there is room for improvement.

With new developments in digital manufacturing, the supply chain landscape is changing rapidly. You can curb the time and distance between supply and demand.  With 3D printing, you can stock an enormous library of part designs, along with some printers and print materials, in a much smaller depot, and print parts as needed, close to the customer.

All of this flexibility – anybody can print anything! – raises important security issues.  How can we be sure that distributed libraries are secure?  Certain that a proprietary design hasn’t been compromised? Confident that a hole-in-the-middle knock-off isn’t substituted for the genuine part?

Blockchain helps solve the security problem.  This is a different use of blockchain from Bitcoin, where a key advantage is that no one, no government or authority, is in charge.  Blockchain for supply chain security benefits from central management by a trusted authority.  Tracking physical assets using blockchain is a virtual, digital process: a representation of the asset is tracked.  

Tracking physical objects is important, to protect intellectual property as well as for inventory management.  We want to be sure that aircraft parts are genuine, whether we are Airbus or Boeing, the airline, or an impatient, but safety-conscious, passenger.

SAP is collaborating with major industry players to leverage blockchain to address supply chain security across industries, from pharmaceuticals to 3D printing.  Trust is a key element.  For distributed manufacturing, manufacturers can build on 3D printing’s advantages: lightweight, complex parts, delivered ever more quickly, with the assurance that the design is protected and production is vetted.

Analysts have pointed out one additional element necessary to protect physical assets  in blockchain: some way to track the tangible object itself, not just its label, code, package, or digital twin (Gartner “Blockchain Fundamentals for Supply Chain” 23 February 2018; Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna, The Truth Machine, St. Martin’s Press 2018).

Not only can anyone print anything, a counterfeit part maker with a 3D scanner can make a bogus version that seems real, but performs badly, with substandard materials, sloppy tolerances, or internal voids.  And that bad actor does not even have to steal an official design or buy expensive equipment to make that copy: 3D scanning can now be done via smartphone.

Sticking a tag on the package or the outside of the asset is not an option with additive manufacturing.  In the case of 3D printed spare parts, there is no package, and a stuck-on tag might interfere with functionality.  Successful tagging for physical asset tracking in additive manufacturing must be integrated into the essence of the printed object itself.

For the blockchain model to protect physical assets in the supply chain, some level of substantive feedback is necessary. The blockchain needs to be able to query physical objects and get some kind of “I’m ok!  You can trust me!” response, without tags that can be spoofed with a scanner or interfere with function.  InfraTrac has partnered with SAP to embed chemical fingerprinting right into objects, to provide that security.  InfraTrac’s taggants are hidden inside, e.g. as a spot layered into the 3D print as it is made.  These covert tags can be detected in an instant with an off-the-shelf, pocket-sized spectrometer, the same technology that automatically sorts different types of plastic in the recycling stream to make fluffy polyester fleece and durable high-density polyethylene park benches.

SAP’s blockchain manages the chemical information as well, maintaining a secure ledger with the spectrometer’s “I’m ok!” matches, and alerting quality controllers when printed parts are suspect.  We want our instant parts, balanced with security.  So you can be sure those aircraft are safe, truck parts are secure, medical implants are genuine, and whatever advanced manufacturing brings next actually makes our lives better.

[infratrac]

#additivemanufacturing #brandprotection #TCTshow #3dprinting

[infratrac]

Conferences and more conferences

InfraTrac hits the road for the TCT additive manufacturing conference in Birmingham, England, the Human Language Technology conference in Springfield, VA, and Printing for Fabrication in Denver.  Here’s where you can hear us, or drop us a note at info@infratrac.com to schedule a meeting or find out more about any of the presentations:

Sept. 26, 2017

Chemical IP Authentication for Additive Manufacturing

http://www.tctshow.com/Content/Main-Stage

Oct. 3, 2017

Sensor Fusion, AI and HLT: The New Context

http://www.hltcon.org/agenda/

Nov. 9, 2017

3D Fakes: Chemical Fingerprinting in Additive Manufacturing, from Pharmaceuticals to Engines

Printing for Fabrication, Materials, Applications, and Processes the 33nd International Conference on Digital Printing Technologies (NIP)

www.imaging.org/site/IST/Conferences/NIP/IST/Conferences/Print4Fab/Printing_for_Fabrication.aspx

[infratrac]

Titanium, tagged!

[infratrac]

featuring... InfraTrac!  UPS picked this up too, for their Longitudes blog.

[infratrac]

Rapid3D Innovation

Come see us present at the innovation showcase in Orlando at Rapid3D!

[infratrac]

(via How to defend your copyright in 3D printing) We’re all for verification - in fact we are positioned to be the company providing chemical authentication.  We’ve got the technology to do it, and patents backing it up.  But photography is a cautionary tale: commercial photographers barely exist any more, because quick-and-dirty + sharing got so easy.

[infratrac]

InfraTrac’s chief lobbyist spoke on anti-counterfeiting at the House Manufacturing Caucus and Maker Caucus Cyber and Digital Manufacturing session on Transforming the Future of Engineering Design and Manufacturing