An agile robot taping system – modeling, tool design, planning and execution

Abstract

Purpose Taping, covering objects with masking tapes, is a common process before conducting surface treatments such as plasma spraying and painting. Manual taping is tedious and takes a lot of effort of the workers. This paper aims to introduce an automatic agile robotic system and corresponding algorithm to do the surface taping. Design/methodology/approach The taping process is a special process which requires correct tape orientation and proper allocation of the masking tape for the coverage. This paper discusses on the design of the novel automatic system consisting of a robot manipulator, a rotating platform, a 3D scanner and a specially designed novel taping end-effectors. Meanwhile, the taping path planning to cover the region of interests is introduced. Findings Currently, cylindrical and freeform surfaces have been tested. With improvements on new sets of taping tools and more detailed taping method, taping of general surfaces can be conducted using such system in future. Originality/value The introduced taping path planning method is a novel method first talking about the mathematical model of the taping process. Such taping solution with the taping tool and the taping methodology can be combined as a very useful and practical taping package to replace the work of human in such tedious and time-consuming works.