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In the realm of advanced composites, a fundamental limitation has persistently hindered the full exploitation of their exceptional properties, particularly with carbon fiber: their inherent anisotropic nature produces strength predominantly in the fiber direction. Conventional composites manufacturing addresses this limitation by stacking multiple straight fiber layers at different orientations, a compromise that often results in heavier structures using more material than theoretically necessary. This paradigm has remained largely unchallenged.

Tow steering technology aimed to optimize composite material use. However, achieving ideal fiber alignment along load paths proved difficult, often causing suboptimal curves or wrinkling. In 2021, ���� (CW) reported on a new method from iCOMAT (Bristol, U.K.) called Rapid Tow Shearing (RTS), which uses in-plane tow shearing during deposition. Its defect-free fiber placement enables precise fiber orientation throughout a composite structure and achieves production up to 10 times versus conventional methods.

When CW examined RTS in 2021, iCOMAT was a 2-year-old university spin-off conducting R&D trials with seven OEMs and preparing to place its first system with a customer. Four years later, that experimental technology has become industry ready, reaching real-world deployment.

The company now operates a 45,000-square-foot production facility, serves over 25 customers across aerospace and automotive sectors and has raised $22.5 million in Series A funding, transforming from laboratory curiosity to a commercial business. ICOMAT positions itself as a “super Tier 2” company, meaning it provides a full, integrated manufacturing solution instead of selling machines or software. Customers are charged per preform or component, with iCOMAT managing the entire process from production to delivery.

These capabilities have enabled iCOMAT to demonstrate:

• Weight reduction up to 65% and load-to-mass ratios 300% higher than quasi-isotropic designs.
• First fiber-steered cylinder with 24% higher load and 300% improved damage tolerance versus straight-fiber design.
• Lay-flat-and-form workflow enabling complex aerospace preforms in 5 minutes for <30-minute cycle time with higher quality versus AFP.

The technology is in its fourth generation, now using closed-loop tension control, precision LED heating and four-axis CNC cutting for tapes from 5 to 200 millimeters wide. ICOMAT’s full-scale production facility in Gloucester, U.K., delivers end-to-end production of components up to 6 × 3 meters.

“We’ve taken fiber shearing from theory to industrial reality,” says Dr. Evangelos Zympeloudis, founder and CEO of iCOMAT. “From first principles to full-scale manufacturing, our journey involved developing every aspect of the technology from the mechanical systems to the thermal management and process control software.”

Breaking the fiber steering barrier

Unlike conventional AFP systems that bend tapes to create curved paths that cause wrinkling, RTS uses a shearing mechanism. This approach maintains equal fiber length across the tape width during shearing, effectively eliminating residual stresses that cause defects.

“Traditional manufacturing stacks straight fiber layers at different orientations, but structures are never loaded equally in all directions,” explains Zympeloudis. “It would be far more effective to steer fibers to reinforce critical areas, resulting in lighter parts produced at lower cost while enabling true industrial automation.”

The concept of fiber steering isn’t new; NASA originally proposed it in the early 1980s. A substantial body of literature has demonstrated its theoretical benefits, but manufacturing constraints have prevented practical implementation. Conventional automated fiber placement (AFP) systems attempt to steer fibers by bending the tape, but this can potentially create defects like wrinkles and gaps that negate the potential performance advantages.

“The bottleneck was always manufacturing,” Zympeloudis notes. “It’s impossible to manufacture fiber-steered structures with AFP without generating significant defects that outweigh the many benefits. What iCOMAT has done is develop the world’s first and only technology that can actually fiber-steer without any defects, while maintaining high productivity through wide tape processing.

RTS evolution and Factory 1

The technology has evolved through four generations: Alpha, Beta, Gamma and now Sigma. The current Sigma RTS head represents significant advancements in process control, featuring closed-loop tension control, precision heating using advanced LED technology and four-axis CNC cutting. The system can process tape widths from 5 to 200 millimeters, offering unprecedented flexibility in optimizing material deposition for specific applications.

RTS is protected by multiple patent families and is the result of 16 years of research and development — 10 years at the University of Bristol (U.K.) followed by 6 years as iCOMAT. Factory 1, the company’s 45,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art production facility, includes a Class 7 clean room, assembly room, coordinate measuring machine (CMM), autoclaves, five-axis CNC machinery and spray-painting facilities.

Phase 1, complete at the time of writing, includes kit cutting and laser projection for template location. Phase 2 will expand production capabilities with pressing, hot drape forming and multiple RTS tape laying lines.

Structural efficiency transformation

The most immediate advantage of fiber shearing is enhanced structural performance. By precisely aligning fibers with load paths, RTS-manufactured components can achieve weight reductions of 10-65% compared to conventional composites, without sacrificing strength or durability.

In a collaborative project with BAE Systems (London, U.K.) and Airbus UK (London) called FibreSteer, iCOMAT produced a lower wing skin demonstration component using fiber shearing to address stress concentrations around access holes. Traditional composites face a fundamental challenge with such features: when zero-degree fibers (running parallel to the primary load path) encounter a hole, they are severed, creating significant stress concentrations that require substantial reinforcement.

“With RTS, we can route the fibers around the hole, maintaining continuous load paths that eliminate stress concentrations,” explains Zympeloudis. “The results are remarkable. Our RTS-manufactured composite part demonstrated a load-to-mass ratio three times higher than a quasi-isotropic design.”

When compared to the same component manufactured using conventional AFP, the difference is stark. The AFP-produced part exhibited severe local wrinkling and buckling along the steered paths, while the RTS-produced part showed no visible defects.

Similar results have been achieved in space applications. Working with aerospace partners, iCOMAT produced what it says is the world’s first defect-free fiber-steered cylinder, a geometry commonly found in launch vehicles and spacecraft structures. The RTS design not only outperformed the best straight-fiber design in ultimate load capacity by 24%, but also demonstrated a 300% improvement in damage tolerance.

“In simple terms, RTS expands the design space exponentially,” Zympeloudis notes. “With traditional composites using three layers, for example, you have three discrete points where you can optimize fiber orientation. With RTS, you can change fiber orientation at any point within each layer, creating virtually unlimited design possibilities.”

Enabling industrial-scale production

Beyond structural efficiency, RTS technology enables a transformation in manufacturing approach. ICOMAT has developed a “lay-flat-and-form” workflow that leverages fiber shearing to enable high-rate production of complex 3D components.

The RTS system first creates a flat preform with precisely engineered fiber paths. Unlike direct 3D fiber placement — which are comparatively slow and expensive — the RTS-developed flat preform can be rapidly formed into its final 3D shape using established processes like hot drape forming or stamping.

“The challenge with forming carbon fiber is that it doesn’t readily stretch,” Zympeloudis explains. “Attempting to form a complex shape from straight fibers is like wrapping paper around a football — it creates wrinkles. Our approach pre-steers the fibers in 2D so they can be formed without defects, enabling production rates up to 10 times faster than direct 3D layup.”

This manufacturing approach has profound implications, particularly where production rates and cost efficiency are paramount. Using 200-millimeter-wide tapes, iCOMAT can produce a preform for a complex aerospace component in 5 minutes, compared to 8.5 hours using conventional AFP for the same component. Including cutting and forming operations, the entire process takes less than 30 minutes while yielding higher-quality parts.

The company has also implemented this approach for automotive structures in collaboration with major OEMs. For example, in partnership with Jaguar Land Rover (Coventry, U.K.), Far-UK (Nottingham, U.K.) and CCP Gransden (County Down, U.K.) during project SOCA, iCOMAT used RTS technology to manufacture a complex automotive chassis using carbon fiber unidirectional (UD) tapes that conventional AFP systems could not process due to the tight curvature requirements of the design.

“In automotive applications, it’s all about cost,” says Zympeloudis. “Carbon fiber is expensive, so we use it judiciously, applying RTS to create a structural skeleton that takes 80% of the load, while using lower-cost recycled materials for the remainder.”

In SOCA, iCOMAT used UD carbon fiber to create the structural skeleton, which was then combined with low-cost, low-life cycle assessment materials such as recycled carbon, flax and glass fiber to form the “flesh” of the structure. The resulting automotive demonstrator structure was able to compete directly with aluminum in terms of both weight and global warming potential. This demonstrated that high-performance composites, when paired with recycled materials, can meet automotive structural requirements while being produced at industrial manufacturing rates. The innovative approach could lead to a new class of lightweight, cost-effective structures that offer significant weight reductions compared to aluminum, all while maintaining comparable production costs.

Unique business model enables adoption

ICOMAT continuously refines its material intelligence, manufacturing capabilities and software and hardware systems based on manufacturing experience.

“We’re not just a technology developer or machine manufacturer,” explains Zympeloudis. “Our business model is organized into three integrated units: one builds the manufacturing machines but retains ownership, another creates the software but keeps it proprietary, and the third uses these internal technologies to manufacture parts or preforms that we sell to Tier 1s or OEMs. Our customers pay per manufactured component, benefiting from our integrated expertise.”

This approach addresses a fundamental disconnect in traditional composite supply chains. Typically, machine manufacturers focus on maximizing equipment sales without optimizing for specific processes, while end users lack the specialized knowledge to fully exploit the technology. By combining machine development and operation under one roof, iCOMAT continuously improves its products for its customers and its own operational practices.

“This setup lets us streamline the supply chain and align incentives with our customers,” Zympeloudis says. “We’re motivated to make preforms and parts as efficiently as possible, refining machines and processes to suit each application. Customers avoid upfront capital expenditure, benefiting from lower costs, while we achieve operational sustainability through ongoing improvements.”

The company’s approach has attracted significant investment, including a $22.5 million Series A funding round in 2024 led by 8VC (Austin, Texas, U.S.) and co-led by NATO Innovation Fund, with participation from Syensqo (Brussels, Belgium) and existing investors. Zympeloudis contends that this represents one of the largest Series A investments ever in composites manufacturing.

Future developments and applications

ICOMAT is actively expanding its technological capabilities beyond the current Sigma RTS system. The company is currently developing a next-generation system optimized for direct 3D deposition, targeting applications like aircraft wing skins and other large-scale components.

“Our current system excels at producing frames, spars and smaller skin components using the lay-flat-and-form approach,” says Zympeloudis. “The next evolution will enable direct deposition for very large structures, completing our solution set for aerospace and automotive applications.”

The company is also exploring applications beyond structural performance, including thermal management and vibration control. The ability to precisely control fiber orientation enables tailored mechanical properties that can address multiple design requirements simultaneously.

“With RTS, we can design for thermal expansion, vibration damping and structural performance concurrently,” Zympeloudis notes. “In space applications, where thermal management is critical, we can engineer structures that maintain dimensional stability across extreme temperature gradients while simultaneously optimizing for load-bearing capacity.”

ICOMAT is currently working with more than 25 customers across aerospace, automotive and defense sectors, and has successfully delivered demonstrator parts for demanding applications including fighter aircraft panels, space launcher structures and Formula 1 components.

As the company scales up production at Factory 1, it’s positioning RTS as the next major evolution in composites manufacturing. “Our goal is to do for carbon fiber what Carnegie did for steel [during the Industrial Revolution],” Zympeloudis says, referencing how steel manufacturing innovations enabled widespread adoption across multiple industries. “We want to make carbon fiber composites accessible at industrial scale and enable applications that aren’t possible with current technology.”