Search results

The purpose of this paper is to design a special automatic redundant robot painting system (RRPS), which can automatically navigate and paint in the long non-regular duct.

The RRPS is designed with three subsystems: a redundant robot, a spraying system and a control and safety system. Based on the modular design theory, the robot falls naturally into a mobile platform, a 4-DOF location mechanism and a 10-DOF manipulator. The restriction of the distance between the links and the duct axis is used to plan the trajectory of the manipulator so that it would not collide with the duct. The restriction model is constructed by minimizing the sum of the weighed distances between the duct axis and the special points.

A fully working prototype system has been developed. Test results show that the minimal distance between the robot joints and duct is 18 mm, and it can finish painting long non-regular ducts at the speed of 12.5 cm/s and the spraying distance of 16 cm. The quality of coating layers is good.

The RRPS was used to paint non-regular rectangular ducts, cylindrical ducts and long non-regular ducts. The feasibility of painting long non-regular duct is proved with the prototype implementation and successful test results.

The RRPS shows a novel solution that is based on the 14-DOF redundant robot design for painting long non-regular ducts which is used in airplane.

This paper aims to achieve automatically surface segmentation for painting different kinds of aircraft efficiently considering the demands of painting robot.

This project creatively proposed one method that accepts point cloud, outputs several blocks, each of which can be handled by ABB IRB 5500 in one station. Parallel PointNet (PPN) is proposed in this paper for better handling six dimensional aircraft data including every point normal. Through semantic segmentation of PPN, each surface has its own identity information indicating which part this surface belongs to. Then clustering considering constraints is applied to complete surface segmentation with identity information. To guarantee segmentation paintable and improve painting efficiency, different dexterous workspaces of IRB 5500 corresponding to different postures have been analyzed carefully.

The experiments confirm the effectiveness of the proposed surface segmentation method for painting different types of aircraft by IRB 5500. For semantic segmentation on aircraft data with point normal, PPN has higher precision than PointNet. In addition, the whole algorithm can efficiently segment one complex aircraft into qualified blocks, each of which has its own identity information, can be painted by IRB 5500 in one station and has fewer edges with other blocks.

As the provided experiments indicate, the proposed method can segment one aircraft into qualified blocks automatically, which highly improves the efficiency in aircraft painting compared with traditional approaches. Moreover, the proposed method is able to provide identity information of each block, which is necessary for application of different paint parameters and different paint materials. In addition, final segmentation results by the proposed method behaves better than k-means cluster on variance of normal vector distance.

Inspired by semantic segmentation of 3 D point cloud, some improvements based on PointNet have been proposed for better handling segmentation of 6 D point cloud. By introducing normal vectors, semantic segmentation could be accomplished precisely for close points with opposite normal, such as wing upper and lower surfaces. Combining deep learning skills with traditional methods, the proposed method is proved to behave much better for surface segmentation task in aircraft painting.

The purposes of this paper are to review the progress of and conclude the trend for paint thickness simulation for painting robot trajectory planning.

This paper compares the explicit function-based method and computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based method used for paint thickness simulation. Previous research is considered, and conclusions with the outlook are drawn.

The CFD-based paint deposition simulation is the trend for paint thickness simulation for painting robot trajectory planning. However, the calculation of paint thickness resulting from dynamically painting complex surface remains to be researched, which needs to build an appropriate CFD model, study approaches to dynamic painting simulation and investigate the simulation with continuously changing painting parameters.

This paper illustrates that the CFD-based method is the trend for the paint thickness simulation for painting robot trajectory planning. Current studies have been analyzed, and techniques of CFD modeling have also been summarized, which is vital for future study.

Examines the developing uses of off‐line programming (OLP) in the automotive industry, particularly in the areas of robot welding and robot painting of vehicle bodies. States that this is due to the development of graphical simulation tools and outlines their role in “right first time” policies. Looks at applications of OLP at Volvo, Capponi Alesina (Fiat’s largest, painting subcontractor) and Applied Manufacturing Technologies, a US manufacturing systems design house. Describes the use of OLP in painting machines and truck painting, and in spot welding truck bodies.

To present the technical and subsequent commercial developments arising from a large European research project into robotic paint‐spraying of low‐volume, highly variant components.

Discusses the economic need for robots that can plan their own paint trajectories for unknown parts, and describes the design and management of the project. Presents details of the technical approach taken by the researchers, the subsequent commercial developments, and the present state of the art.

The commercial developments following the research project promise a solution to the increasingly prevalent problem of small batch sizes in paint‐spraying. This opens up new markets, making much wider use of robot technology.

Updates robot specialists and general readers on the progress of a highly innovative European initiative.

The very precision of robots restricts their flexibility. Now a Canadian company is breaching these boundaries.

Reviews the current use of paint robots in the automotive industry and looks at the further development of robot control which has extended its reach into the area of process control. Summarizes the potential of the developing technologies.

The increasing demand for industrial automation has finally reached the paint shops throughout the mechanical industry. The operations performed in most paint shops are stressing, i.e. monotonous ever‐repeating movements day in and day out, as conditions also can be unhealthy because the operators breathe intoxicated air. Although surface treatments call for highly skilled spraygun operators, these qualified men cannot be offered a first class environment because of the specific paint shop situation. The spray painter, therefore, does not always feel happy with his job. He notices that other work shops in the factory grow better and better with regard to equipment and working conditions, while his shop stays with the old system. He is, therefore, constantly looking for a better place, which can be dramatic to his factory because skilled spray gun operators are hard to replace, or because the training‐in of new men is a costly matter, it takes time, and quality as well as capacity may be suffering during that time.

In order to replace the conventional human maintenance of cable‐stayed bridges, a robot is designed and constructed for tasks such as cleaning, painting and rust‐detecting.

Adopting a modular approach, two kinds of climbing mechanisms, plus a painting mechanism and a rust‐detecting method are designed.

A robot that can climb and maintain the cables of cable‐stayed bridges has been designed and constructed. It has been proved by experiment that the robot can overcome many disadvantages of conventional human bridge‐maintenance, and drastically improve efficiency, cost, and safety.

The robot is of industrial size, but a new mechanism requiring less installing time will be designed for the future.

The robot has been applied to cables of the Nanpu Bridge and Xupu Bridge in Shanghai. More than 80 cable‐stayed bridges and six suspension bridges have been built or are being constructed across large rivers in China alone. This gives an enormous potential market.

The cable maintenance robot developed in this paper is the world's first special robot for the cables of cable‐stayed bridges.

Describes some of the new products at the Surface World exhibition held at the NEC in Birmingham, UK. Three of the mainstream robot vendors supplying painting systems were at the show and each launched a new product. They also displayed a trend to the growth in the coating of plastic components. Another strong showing was for powder coating, and some of the leading specialist suppliers of equipment for this process were present. At present this type of coating is not generally economic for robot use.