MTC selects Caracol’s Vipra XP AM platform to expand its large-format metal additive manufacturing capabilities

COVENTRY, UK and MILAN, Italy (28 October 2026) – The Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), the UK’s leading independent research and technology organisation for advanced manufacturing, has selected Vipra XP AM, Caracol’s robotic arc based directed energy deposition (DED-Arc) platform, to enhance the DED capability available within the National Centre for Additive Manufacturing (NCAM).

Part of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult network ( established by and working in partnership with Innovate UK), MTC works at the forefront of manufacturing innovation, bridging the gap between industry and academia to develop and deploy advanced manufacturing technologies at industrial scale. Its members and customers span sectors including aerospace, defence, automotive, rail, construction, and energy, ranging from global multinationals to specialist SMEs. The addition of Vipra XP AM system to MTC’s AM facilities expands the national centre’s capacity to research, develop, and qualify large-format metal AM applications for this broad industrial base, with a focus on sectors where part size, material performance, and production flexibility are critical requirements.

Vipra XP AM is Caracol’s robotic DED platform for large-format metal parts, processing a wide range of metal alloys. The system is supported by Eidos Manufacturing, Caracol’s proprietary software suite. A broad sensor suite gives MTC’s research team end-to-end process control, from toolpath generation and parameter adjustment through to in-process monitoring and data visualisation, for application development and qualification work.

The two organisations are already working together on the development of high-complexity industrial components, with the Vipra AM platform enabling geometric freedom and material performance that conventional metal manufacturing processes cannot achieve at this scale.

Caracol has grown from early-stage application development to production-proven deployments across aerospace, defence, and other demanding sectors. As the company keeps expanding into large-format metal AM, collaboration with research institutions of MTC’s calibre becomes essential: advancing DED technology at this scale requires application-led research, qualification infrastructure, and an industrial network that MTC provides.

“Our projects often involve complex challenges that require the very best expertise in terms of hardware, software, and partnerships. The Caracol Vipra XP stood out not only because its hardware has demonstrated strong capabilities, but also because the company has shown a clear commitment to working side by side with MTC to advance the adoption of DED technology in industry. We look forward to having the system installed and fully operational,” said Jhonattan Gutjahr, DED-AM Technical Specialist, and Jonathan Pratt, DED-AM Senior Research Engineer at MTC.

“Accelerating the industrial adoption of large-format metal additive manufacturing requires more than good hardware: it requires rigorous research infrastructure, deep application knowledge, great partnerships, and the right industrial network to take new processes from development to deployment in regulated sectors,” said Francesco De Stefano, co-founder and CEO of Caracol. “We are excited to be collaborating with MTC, one of the few organisations in the world that can support all of that. Vipra AM has proven its maturity in the production of complex components for some of the most demanding highly regulated industries. What this collaboration unlocks is the ability to move faster: faster qualification, faster adoption, and a shorter path from development to certified production for the OEMs and primes that need it most.”