The Rise of Spray Painting Robots in Industrial Maintenance Services

In an interaction with Industry Outlook, Som Sengupta, Director of Specialty Products and Services, shares his insights on the rise of spray-painting robots in industrial maintenance services. He highlights the painting robots' crucial role in different sectors, their innovative futuristic approach in the field, and the challenges faced while operating these key systems.  

Som Sengupta has been the director of Specialty Products and Services, a leader in hard to access areas of industrial maintenance, for over 10 years. His organisation combines robotic innovation into the human work environment to leverage greater efficiency, higher productivity and lower risk through human disintermediation in hazardous environments. 

With infrastructure ageing and industries prioritizing asset longevity, how are service companies leveraging spray painting robots to deliver precision maintenance in sectors like oil & gas, power, and marine? 

Spray painting robots are not widely used for maintenance work in heavy industries, especially in India. Some developed nations have started using painting robots for this work, but in India, it’s still nascent. 

Due to environmental and job associated hazards, these robots are witnessing a rise in demand. These platforms can work in hazardous conditions, for long periods compared to human labour who are prone to risk and fatigue. 

Painting robots can be particularly useful in the oil and gas and petrochemical sector for coating storage tanks, in the marine industry for painting ship hulls and anywhere else where assets have large flattish surfaces. These are likely areas where we are expected to witnessing the replacement of humans with robots over time.  

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What are the unique logistical and operational challenges of deploying spray-painting robots in unpredictable field environments — such as offshore rigs or large industrial tanks — and how are service teams overcoming them? 

At present, there are sparse solutions in India for industrial asset inspection and maintenance. There are various phases of maintenance in which robotic assistance can help. One can select drones, crawlers, spray robots and many other robots, based on the requirement. But, spray-painting robotic solutions are still under development and trials as they face challenges of complex asset geometries and environmental conditions.  

When it comes to painting, precision of movement is crucial. Selected drones must fly steadily and follow exact paths, and crawlers must move in straight in controlled lines and speeds. All of these require advanced control systems with real-time sensors for continuous feedback and movement adjustment.  

In what ways do robotic spray systems improve coating consistency, reduce overspray, and minimize environmental impact during large-scale industrial maintenance projects? 

Spray painting executed by humans is prone inconsistency in paint thickness as a result of over or under spray. For example, when a person is doing manual spraying with an airless spray gun. However, with robotic spray systems, this can largely be eliminated. Once we calibrate and train the robots, they can carry out the functions autonomously and complete the job quickly and consistently and greatly reduce paint wastage.  

These systems can also work for longer hours, unlike humans, without tiring or loss of quality.  

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How do safety protocols and site-specific compliance requirements shape the deployment of robotic painting systems in hazardous or high-access environments like refineries or chimneys? 

Industries have various governing standards for safety compliance. For international or European standards, there is the ATEX directive in explosive environments such as the oil and gas sector. In India, we have PESO as the equivalent. So these protocols are crucial as they avoid huge accidents in the chemical-prone industries. 

While introducing robots in the working environment, these safety protocols need to be baked into such innovations to ensure a safer work environment. 

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Looking ahead, how will advancements in mobile robotics and AI-enabled spray systems redefine the economics and scalability of industrial maintenance services across India? 

AI-enabling robotic systems will be a game changer in autonomous working of robotic platforms in industrial maintenance. AI, image recognition and machine learning will help minimize human intervention of operating the robots. The human oversight of these robots will become passive rather than active and manual over rides are expected only in emergency situations.