How Machina Labs is Reshaping Defense Manufacturing with AI-Driven 7-Axis Robotics

May 1, 2026

Machina Labs recently closed its latest round of financing with $124 million, enough to develop a facility featuring up to 50 of its RoboCraftsman cells capable of producing thousands of complex structural assemblies for aerospace and defense customers — a list that already includes Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Air Force, among others.

Founded in 2019, Machina Labs is a California-based company that seeks to reinvent metal manufacturing with a robot that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to rapidly form and assemble complex military grade structures directly from digital design files. RoboCraftsman is the company’s manufacturing robot that leverages its proprietary “RoboForming” process to integrate multiple manufacturing processes — including metal forming, trimming, scanning, and heat treating — into a single containerized machine.

RoboCraftsman: AI-Driven 7-Axis Robotics

Each RoboCraftsman features two industrial robotic arms attached to separate linear rails that use a frame to incrementally shape metal sheets into complex geometries, “without the need for geometry specific dies, molds, or presses,” according to the company’s website. RoboCraftsman leverages 7-axis robotics to shape structural sheet metal parts up to 12 feet (3.7 meters) long and 4 feet (1.2 meters) in depth.

The first generation (left) and second generation (right) RoboCraftsman configurations. Both employ dual robotic arms mounted on linear rails with a central fixture frame for sheet metal. RoboCraftsman is robot agnostic; selection is based on DFM requirements, such as load capacity, forming speed, and material. (Image: Machina Labs)

During an interview with Aerospace & Defense Technology, Machina Labs CEO Edward Mehr said the company designed the RoboCraftsman cells to replicate nearly all of the manufacturing processes that traditionally would be performed by human engineers, machinists, and technicians. The company seeks to establish RoboCraftsman factories capable of producing multiple designs, parts, and structures within the same facility. This is a core goal of Machina Labs — to transition the aerospace and defense industry away from reliance on one dedicated factory to design and manufacture one specific part, structure, or sub assembly.

The RoboCraftsman. (image: Machina Labs)

Instead, RoboCraftsman cells are capable of changing their entire production focus through software updates, under a business model that operates more like a modern AI data center and less like a traditional manufacturing facility.

“The core problem I’ve been trying to solve throughout my career is: how can you build factories that are like data centers — fast, agile, and able to go from an idea to a product without modifying anything in the factory, and without making geometry or material specific investments in tooling?” Mehr said. “We think we have a holistic solution — the robotic system has intelligence like a human craftsman, so it can pick up different tools and perform different operations. That’s why we call it a ‘Robo Craftsman.’ It’s very flexible. In our factories, we can make car parts in the morning and, in the afternoon, make aircraft components or missile fuel tanks — just by changing software, not the factory itself.”

Mehr further described some of the core breakthroughs of the RoboForming process used by RoboCraftsman as replicating the assembly processes a skilled sheet metal craftsman might follow by hand.

How did Machina Labs eliminate the need for geometry specific dies? Instead of using traditional stamping presses with matching male and female dies that stamp a metal sheet placed between them, robotics, AI, and machine learning automate the process.

“We don’t need those dies anymore. Instead, robots decide where to go on the part and how much deformation is required, incrementally, until you reach a complex geometry,” Mehr said. “Forming was the first process we focused on, but today the robot does much more. We do trimming, slotting, hole making, scanning for quality control, and even heat treatment. The robot can become a scanner to create a 3D geometry of the part.”

The company is also evaluating the use of RoboCraftsman for bending, hemming, and forging.

Aerospace and Defense Production

Mehr conducted the interview with A&DT from the facility where the company currently produces its RoboCraftsman machines. That facility is working on scaling production of up to 30–35 RoboCraftsman cells per year. A second facility, “Machina One,” currently features eight RoboCraftsman cells for low volume production — “hundreds of units per design,” according to Mehr.

(a) CAD file of one section of the toroidal tank. Blue highlights the actual part and the gray is the skirt. The part is (b) RoboFormed from 0.125-in. thick AA5052-H32, stress relieved, and then (c) trimmed. The panels are then (d) hand welded using a weld fixture and (e) released. (f) Multiple subassemblies (author for scale) are then welded together to form (g) the final toroidal tank. (Image: Machina Labs)

A contract award with AFRL includes a partnership with the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Institute, a Department of War (DoW) Manufacturing Innovation Institute based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The program will tailor RoboCraftsman’s AI and machine learning capabilities to DoW sustainment needs. Initially, the effort will focus on automating toolpath generation for airframe skins and panels.

The company is already using RoboCraftsman to produce replacement panels and skin sections for military aircraft. RoboCraftsman cells are also producing high temperature alloys and complex contours today. Machina Labs has secured additional contract awards from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and the Air Force Rapid Sustainment Office. Machina is working with a “leading defense prime on metal structures production for missiles and hypersonics,” according to a February press release.

“We believe Machina Labs’ AI driven manufacturing approach will play a key role in shaping the future of aerospace production,” Chris Moran, Vice President and General Manager at Lockheed Martin Ventures, said in the same release. “The launch of their new factory marks a major step forward, demonstrating how intelligent, robotic production can bring greater speed, precision, and scalability to the industry.”

Outside of its aerospace and defense work, the company has an ongoing partnership with Toyota to develop production quality automotive panels.

The new RoboCraftsman can form parts at the Machina Labs factory in Los Angeles, transform into two ISO containers, drive, ship, or fly to a new location, and begin forming parts days after arrival. (Image: Machina Labs)

“We focus on large structural components — airframes, fuel tanks, and aircraft structures. We do work with the Department of Defense on components for aircraft like the C-130, C-5, C-17, and F-16,” Mehr said. “In space, we’ve worked on fuel tanks for spacecraft and satellites, and more recently on structural components.”

The Intelligent Factory

A split image of a large-scale Intelligent Factory alongside a close-up photograph of Machina’s software-defined RoboCraftsman manufacturing platform. The graphic highlights how intelligent, integrated factories can form, weld, and assemble complex metal structures for defense, aerospace, and advanced mobility programs at production scale. (Image: Machina Labs)

The current focus for Machina Labs, however, remains the launch of its first large scale intelligent factory. The factory will be established within a 200,000 square foot, production ready facility that focuses on rapidly transitioning from digital design files to production. Within this single factory, 50 RoboCraftsman cells will be capable of forming, machining, welding, and assembly.

Instead of spreading assembly work across multiple sites, Mehr believes the flexibility of the intelligent factory model could allow nearly all manufacturing work required for new aerospace and defense platforms to occur within a single facility — programmed to make subcomponent one, then reprogrammed to make subcomponent two, for example.

While the new factory will feature 50 robots, it will also include about 150 human workers, which Mehr said is nearly equal to staffing levels at today’s robot-less factories. Machina Labs trains its engineers and technicians using internally developed software called “Architect.”

The process for training new employees on the software, material handling, and finishing operations is typically 1-2 months, according to Mehr.

“We’re a software-hardware company. Everything starts with design. We have internal software — called Architect — that helps engineers prepare parts for manufacturing and generate computer aided manufacturing instructions for the robots,” Mehr said. “That’s typically done by manufacturing engineers. Once the recipe is finalized, technicians operate the robots. It’s very different from traditional machinery — it’s more like working with robots through an iPad style interface, almost like playing a computer game.”

This article was written by Woodrow Bellamy III, Senior Editor, SAE Media Group (New York, NY).