For decades, original equipment manufacturers (OEM) have used specially designed robots to paint automobiles, all types of parts, and heavy equipment in a factory environment. To accommodate customer needs, coating chemists have created multiple coating formulas and techniques for each robot and the corresponding substrate. This helps address robotic painting problems on the OEM factory floor. As software expertise has grown, so too have robotic capabilities that expand to painting outside the factory environment. Now, paint bots and drones are currently at the cutting edge of paint application technology. In 2019, AkzoNobel held its annual Paint the Future contest, seeking new technologies to fund for collaborative development. The contest was won by Apellix LLC, a startup company in Jacksonville, FL, whose patented tethered drone technology was developed not only for painting structures, but also for measuring dry film thickness on the substrate. The technology has sophisticated algorithms that allow it to build a surface "heat map" to tell the asset owner where paint is too thin and may fail prematurely. In addition, the drone can also be used for cleaning surfaces prior to painting.
展开▼
