Case Study: Clear Flight Solutions reduces bird nuisance and boosts airport safety with Materialise

Robirds 3D Printing Spreads Its Wings

Clear Flight Solutions, a Dutch company, developed high-tech "Robirds" to address bird nuisance that threatens aviation, waste management and agriculture. To create realistic, flight-capable robotic birds, Clear Flight Solutions turned to Materialise for 3D printing — specifically laser sintering in glass-filled polyamide — to achieve the design freedom and realism required.

Materialise printed the Robirds’ bodies with integrated internal fixation points for mechanical components, enabling rapid design changes and eliminating previous manual assembly. According to Clear Flight Solutions, this approach “saves a great deal of time and money,” and early tests at Twence Waste & Energy have been successful; European airport trials are planned, with Materialise’s 3D-printed Robirds already proving effective at chasing birds and improving passenger and personnel safety.

Clear Flight Solutions

Robbert de Vries

Clear Flight Solutions