Team develops robot systems to remove aircraft coatings

Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC) and Concurrent Technologies Corporation (CTC) are working with the US Air Force Research Laboratory and Ogden Air Logistics Center 309 AMXG to develop and demonstrate a system that uses high-powered lasers to remove coatings from fighter and cargo aircraft.

In a two-year project sponsored by the National Defense Center for Energy and Environment, CTC, under contract with NREC as a subcontractor, will build six autonomous mobile robots, each with a laser coating remover, and deploy them to work in teams to remove paint and other coatings from aircraft at Hill Air Force Base (AFB) in northern Utah.

The demonstration at Hill AFB is the latest phase of development for the Advanced Robotic Laser Coating Removal System (ARLCRS). Earlier, CTC and NREC developed a prototype of the robot, which is undergoing testing at CTC’s facilities.

According to a statement, CTC’s laser coating remover uses a continuous wave laser to strip paint and other coatings from aircraft. It replaces the abrasives or chemical paint removers used in traditional coating removal processes, which generate hazardous wastes and air emissions.