Spray Paint in 3 Dimensions with the PaintCopter UAV

Paint has been applied to surfaces by hand both as decoration and as protection from the elements for ages. Now, however, researchers at…

Jeremy Cook
5 years agoDrones

Paint has been applied to surfaces by hand both as decoration and as protection from the elements for ages. Now, however, researchers at Disney have come up with something new: a quadcopter that can spray paint walls and even curved surfaces autonomously.

The process starts with the drone — a heavily augmented DJI Matrice 100 containing a Jetson TX2 and UP Board— moving along the target surface under manual control, taking readings based on color, depth, and inertial measurement. The UAV is then able to use these readings to apply paint patterns specified by the operator to the area.

The PaintCopter employs a sprayer arm to extend far enough from the drone to minimize paint interference from prop wash. This also features a pan/tilt mechanism for another axis of paint control besides simply moving the drone itself. In order to facilitate prolonged operation time, the device doesn’t carry its own paint, power supply, or compressed air, but gets these elements piped in via a tether.

Be sure to see the PaintCopter in action in the video below. As shown around 3:00, a surface can be filled in as needed, or the drone can paint shapes and characters, and is even capable of retracing its steps if needed. So perhaps the next time you visit a Disney theme park, shapes painted on structures high in the air won’t be a result of scaffolding and potentially hazardous human labor, but that of a drone and artists working at a distance!

[h/t: Digital Trends]

Jeremy Cook
Engineer, maker of random contraptions, love learning about tech. Write for various publications, including Hackster!
Latest articles
Sponsored articles
Related articles
Latest articles
Read more
Related articles