SAMSUNG HEAVY INDUSTRIES

Samsung Heavy Industries has developed a wall-climbing, vacuum-blasting robot that can move freely across the outer wall of a ship.
It is producing favorable results in terms of work speed enhancement, safety enhancement, and quality improvement.

When the ship form is completed, the blasting of the welded parts needs to take place prior to the painting of the outer part of the ship. Previous approaches required a worker to climb up a Hydraulic Lift (Cherrypicker) at the outer part of the ship to perform blasting work with a portable grinder.

SHI's vacuum blasting robot, meanwhile, can freely move from all parts of the ship, from the bottom to top and the outer wall. This robot is, in a sense, a showcase of SHI's production automation technology, as it combines the automatic tracking of the welding parts, a wireless communication control system, and automatically controlled vacuum pressure technology. This development has resulted in a seven-fold increase in the speed of blasting work, while enhancing safety, quality, and environmental impact.