Yale
Assembly Line
The Czingers disrupt manufacturing at top speeds — 253 mph, specifically
With a combination of innovative software and 3D metal printing, the Czingers have created a system to radically speed up and streamline the process of making vehicles, and potentially transform the automotive industry. It applies artificial intelligence to develop car parts, and 3D printing to manufacture them.
The Los Angeles-based company’s own Divergent Adaptive Production System (DAPS) was developed by a team that includes engineers formerly from Tesla, Apple, and other tech heavyweights. It’s a complete software-hardware solution designed to replace traditional vehicle manufacturing. With artificial intelligence, it can computationally design any structure, no matter how complex. The system then additively manufactures and assembles these parts, optimizing every component for minimum weight and maximum strength. And it can seamlessly switch from manufacturing cars to drones and beyond.
“That software designs the parts and designs it to be its most efficient and to print in the most effective way on our hardware,” said Lukas Czinger, who majored in electrical engineering as a student at Yale College. “Then it also designs it to be assembled in the lowest possible cycle time while meeting all the requirements of our modular, fully fixtureless assembly process. Those three things together — design software, printing, and assembly — is really what Divergent is.”