A robotic spraying path generation algorithm for free-form surface based on constant coating overlapping width

This paper analyses how the width of overlapping decides the coating thickness according to the robotic spray painting model. As it is difficult to obtain stable width of the overlapping between adjacent paths for the commonly used spraying path generation based on parallel planes, which causes problems for controlling the coating thickness in the overlap area, we come up with a spraying path generation algorithm for painting free-form surfaces. The new algorithm is able to guarantee that the overlapping widths are always the same by accurately controlling the distance between corresponding points in adjacent paths. The algorithm is tested on an extrude surface and the result represents that it dramatically reduces the deviations of coating overlapping width between two adjacent paths, which does much good for increasing the coating thickness uniformity.