Design and optimization of spraying robot arm for hull blocks

At present, spraying works on the outer surface of hull blocks are mainly performed by workers with the help of climbing scaffolds, which has several disadvantages such as low efficiency, low quality and harmfulness to workers´ health. This paper proposed a robot arm which can replace humans to carry out spraying works for large vessel facades. However, the whole spraying system was consisted of a big mobile platform and a lightweight spraying robot arm, possessing a large work space. According to the requirements of load capacity and explosion-proof property, the mechanical configuration and length of the robot arm were carefully designed and optimized to permit the spraying robot arm with light weight, high load capacity and high safety. Finally, simulations were performed on the work space and joint torques to verify the good performances of the new lightweight spraying robot arm.