A Simulation Tool for Optimizing a 3D Spray Painting System

The lack of general robotics purposed, accurate open source simulators is a major setback that limits the optimized trajectory generation research and general evolution of the robotics field. Spray painting is a particular case that has multiple advantages in using a simulator for exploring new algorithms, mainly the waste of materials and the dangers associated with a robotic manipulator. This paper demonstrates an implementation of spray painting on a previously existing simulator, SimTwo. Several metrics for optimization that evaluate the painted result are also proposed. In order to validate the implementation, we conducted a real world experiment that serves both as proof that the chosen spray distribution model translates to reality and as a way to calibrate the model parameters.