Evaluating humanoids for surface finishing applications
Manufacturing processes such as sanding, polishing, blasting, grinding, coating, and painting are used in a wide variety of industries. These manufacturing tasks are ergonomically challenging and pose significant health risks for humans (please see image above). There is considerable interest in using robots to automate these operations. When parts are large, the robot arm needs to be repositioned around to ensure that the entire part surface can be covered. People often ask if humanoids would
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Manufacturing processes like sanding, polishing, and coating are physically demanding and pose health risks to workers, creating interest in robotic automation for these tasks. An analysis of humanoid robot features for surface finishing applications on large parts concludes that legs, multi-fingered hands, and heads add unnecessary complexity without providing manufacturing benefits, while dual-arm configurations on mobile bases with distributed sensors prove more effective. General-purpose industrial robots that operate faster and with greater force than humanoids already perform reliably in manufacturing, making them a more practical solution where precision, performance, and speed are priorities.
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