Adaptive path planning of novel complex parts for industrial spraying operations

Abstract

Industrial spraying operations in high-mix, low-volume manufacturing are usually not automated due to variety and variability among workpieces. Automated path planning for industrial spraying operations offers the potential to automate surface preparation and coating in such environments. Autonomous spray path planners in the literature have been limited to generally continuous and convex surfaces, which is not true of most real parts. There is a need for planners that consistently handle concavities and discontinuities, such as sharp corners, holes, protrusions, and other surface abnormalities when building a path. This research uses slicing-based adaptive planning methods to generate path trajectories. It identifies and quantifies the importance of concavities and surface abnormalities and whether they should be considered in the path plan by comparing the true part geometry to the convex hull path. Based on these considerations, the path is adapted accordingly. Results show that the path planning method generates smooth trajectories and indicate that the adaptive methods developed substantially increase both mean impingement and uniformity of impingement in a pressure washing application. From this, it is concluded that the method represents a substantial step toward one-off robotic path planning for complex geometries.