Raise Robotics Coating Robot: Autonomous Painting for Ships, Tanks and Steel at Height

Shipbuilding and heavy-industry automation • Work at height, hazardous-location coating, platform and business model

🤖 Overview: Raise Robotics coating robot is a reconfigurable robotic work cell that rides a Genie scissor or boom lift and applies protective coatings to ship hulls, storage tanks and tall steel while the painter stays safely on the ground. Raise Robotics built its reputation automating dangerous construction work at the edge of high-rise buildings, then took the same platform to roughly 65 feet on a Genie boom lift and pointed it at one of the hardest jobs in American industry: painting ships. This guide covers how the system works, why shipyards need it, its hazardous-location design, the wider Raise platform and AGV, the company's business model and team, and where collaborative robots such as FAIRINO cobots fit into robotic coating.

⚡ Raise Robotics at a Glance

🚢 Why Shipyards Need Robotic Coating

Surface preparation and coating are among the slowest and most dangerous steps in building and maintaining ships. Military.com reports that U.S. shipbuilding faces a projected shortfall of up to 250,000 skilled workers, with surface-prep and coating crews among the hardest roles to fill. Raise frames the problem in a few numbers it publishes on its own site.

• 👷 Scarce skills: Raise estimates it takes about five years to train a skilled industrial painter.

• 💨 Wasted material: 20–40% of coating material is lost to overspray and misses, according to industry estimates Raise cites.

• 🦠 Corrosion cost: corrosion costs the world about $2.5 trillion a year, per the NACE International IMPACT study cited by Raise.

• 🧪 Dangerous paint: Raise's CTO told Seapower that shipyard coatings are roughly 70% solid metal, highly corrosive and flammable.

• 🪜 Falls from height: 389 U.S. construction workers died falling to a lower level in 2024, more than a third of construction fatalities, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data cited by Robotics & Automation News.

Even common access equipment is a problem: Raise points out that standard scissor lifts are not spark-proof, so painters on many sites still rely on ladders and scaffolds. A robot that is certified for explosive atmospheres and can reach the full height of a hull removes people from both the spray zone and the fall zone.

🏗️ From High-Rise Façades to Shipyards

Raise Robotics started with curtain-wall bracket installation, the repetitive and physically demanding work of fixing façade brackets at the slab edge of tall buildings. To do that job, it combined layout, drilling, material handling and verification in one mobile work cell, and each of those tools later became its own application. Seapower reports about 18 projects to date, including the Apple campus in Austin and the St. Jude oncology center, where the robot moved up floor by floor as 14-story buildings went up, marking layout to one to two millimeters, drilling and installing brackets.

Customer results helped the expansion. On the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital project, JR Butler's senior project manager Pierce Torrance said manual layout had produced $100,000 to $130,000 of rework, and Raise's robot prevented similar problems on the remaining floors. Raise first wins work through project-level bids for a defined scope, then moves customers to annual leasing once the robot has proven itself.

⚙️ How the Raise Robotics Coating Robot Works

The heart of the system is the Autonomous Mobile Fabricator (AMF) work cell: a robotic arm, a compute stack and a universal tool interface. The same cell already runs on the ground as an AGV for layout marking and concrete drilling. In a six-month collaboration with Genie, the Terex aerial-lift brand, Raise mounted that swappable cell directly onto Genie scissor and boom lifts. In July 2026 it operated the integrated system live on a Genie boom for customers and partners, reaching the 65-foot class, about six stories. For coating, the painter runs the robot from the ground while it sprays hulls, tanks and steel at height. Each unit is configured for one application and runs from the customer's CAD, BIM or ship model, so the robot follows the real geometry of the structure it is painting.

Raise's leadership describes the strategy as one work cell that changes how it moves rather than a different robot for every elevation. CTO Rishabh Aggarwal has noted that a humanoid can only reach what a person can reach, while much of the work that injures people is beyond that envelope. Raise has also told Seapower it is building an autonomous robot designed to reach about 100 feet.

Video: the Genie × Raise Robotics film, from Raise Robotics on YouTube.

🧠 Software: Cirque Simulation and Alpinist Intelligence

Every Raise tool, platform and industry runs on one software backend with two layers.

• 🎭 Cirque: a simulation environment where the robot rehearses a site's job thousands of times in a digital copy of the site, with failures injected on purpose, before the plan transfers to the real robot.

• 🧗 Alpinist: the on-site intelligence that follows the plan point by point, checks what is actually there and adjusts while staying inside its safety limits.

• 🔒 Data handling: storage of models and scans is configured to match each customer's security and IT requirements.

• 🛑 Safety around people: emergency stop, 360° perception and speed-limited zones.

🔥 Built for Explosive Atmospheres

Marine coatings are flammable, so any machine in the spray zone must not create sparks, static or hot surfaces. Raise says every platform can be configured for Class I, Division 2 locations in North America and ATEX Zone 2 in Europe. ATEX, from the French atmosphères explosibles, requires that electrical and mechanical equipment cannot ignite flammable gases, vapors, mists or combustible dust. Raise's CTO told Seapower that even the robot's tires must be designed so friction with the ground cannot cause a spark, and that no robot of this size had yet completed that certification process.

🧰 Applications on One Platform

Raise told Seapower that coating is only the start for shipyards: the same robot is planned for abrasive blasting, hydro-blasting and other steps in the chain, because shipbuilders want one machine that covers several scopes of work rather than several vendors each automating a fragment.

🛞 The Raise V4 AGV

The mobile base under the work cell is also sold on its own, either as a platform for another company's robot arm or sensor head, or for moving material around a shop or site. The Raise V4 AGV is an omnidirectional, all-wheel-drive base in which each of the four corners is driven and steered independently through 360°, so it can crab sideways, travel diagonally, spin in place or face one direction while driving another. Its self-heating battery charges and runs below freezing, and every drive and steering controller has dual-channel safe torque off. Raise lists it from $40,000 USD per unit, with lease options.

• 📦 Payload: 500 kg design payload on a 350 kg chassis.

• 📏 Size: 1,198 × 770 × 502 mm with 150 mm ground clearance.

• 🏎️ Speed and grade: 5.3 km/h rated, 6.0 km/h peak; 23° continuous grade.

• 🔋 Battery: 10.24 kWh LiFePO4, about 15–18 hours of typical runtime, over 3,000 cycles.

• 🚛 Towing: up to about 14 t at constant speed on finished concrete when fully loaded.

🤝 How to Work With Raise Robotics

Payment options are a direct lease with an annual minimum, financing, or outright purchase. Raise sells direct, business to business; the customer's crew operates the robot, and Raise trains, certifies and supports them. Forward-deployed engineers scope automation needs on site. Seapower also reports that Raise holds eight-figure contracts and co-development partnerships with one of the world's largest shipbuilders, with shipyard deployments planned across the following year.

🏢 Customers and Partners

• 🏗️ Construction: Raise lists projects with JR Butler, DPR Construction, Enclos, Egan, MG McGrath, Harmon, Momentum Glass, TSI, Ventana, VGAS and Zephyr Aluminum.

• 🏥 Landmark sites: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and the Apple campus in Austin.

• 🛗 Equipment: Genie, for integrating the work cell with scissor and boom lifts.

• ⚓ Shipbuilding: a co-development partnership with a major global shipbuilder, unnamed for confidentiality.

👥 Team and Funding

• 🧭 Gary Chen, Co-Founder and CEO: a veteran of Waymo and other robotics companies who brought autonomous-vehicle experience to construction.

• 🏗️ Conley Oster, Co-Founder and COO: formerly a technical project manager at Bigge Crane and Rigging in San Francisco.

• 📣 Ross Blum, President and Chief Business Officer: led the Genie collaboration announcement.

• 🔬 Rishabh Aggarwal, CTO: leads the autonomy and shipyard coating work.

• 💰 Funding: a $7.75 million seed round in July 2025 led by MaC Venture Capital, with Undivided Ventures, Cybernetix Ventures and Zacua Ventures, bringing total funding to $11.8 million.

Press coverage describes Raise as San Francisco-based, while its current website lists Newark, New Jersey.

🦾 Where FAIRINO Cobots Fit in Robotic Coating

FAIRINO USA features Raise Robotics' coating cell in its cobot video gallery as an example of robotic coating for large structures. Spray coating is a task that suits collaborative arms: the gun, hoses and sensors are light, but the arm needs long reach, smooth path control and repeatable standoff distance. Raise does not publish the arm model in its coating cell, so the points below describe how FAIRINO cobots support this class of application rather than Raise's exact configuration. FAIRINO has delivered spray-painting and coating applications worldwide, including the coffin-painting demonstration in its gallery.

• 📐 Long reach: the FAIRINO FR20 offers a 20 kg payload and 1,854 mm reach, enough to sweep a wide band of a hull or tank from one lift position.

• 💥 Explosion-proof options: FAIRINO debuted an explosion-proof robot at CIIF 2024 and offers explosion-proof variants of models such as the FR20 and FR30 for paint environments.

• 🔌 Open integration: Python, C++, ROS and ROS2 SDKs let a planner such as Raise's Alpinist command the arm directly.

• 🏷️ Transparent pricing: FAIRINO USA lists the FR20 at $16,499, which keeps hardware cost low for fleets of lift-mounted cells.

Explore the FAIRINO FR20, the heavier FAIRINO FR30 and FAIRINO automation solutions, or read how cobots power RoomRunner robotic room service.

📅 Raise Robotics Timeline

• 🌱 October 2021: Gary Chen and Conley Oster found Raise Robotics.

• 🧱 2022–2024: the façade-bracket robot reaches active high-rise sites.

• 💵 July 2025: $7.75 million seed round; St. Jude project announced.

• 🎬 July 2026: live demo of the work cell on a Genie boom lift.

• 📰 September 2026: Genie collaboration and shipyard coating plans made public.

• 🚀 Next: shipyard deployments and a robot designed to reach about 100 feet.

✅ Checklist for Shipyards and Contractors

• 🗺️ Hull, tank or steel geometry available as CAD, BIM or ship model

• 🛗 Genie scissor or boom lifts in the fleet, or a plan to rent them

• 🔥 Hazardous-location classification for the spray zone (Class I Div 2 or ATEX Zone 2)

• 🎨 Coating system, film thickness and transfer-efficiency targets

• 🧑‍🏭 Painters who will be trained and certified as robot operators

• 📊 Baseline cost per square foot, rework and overspray for comparison

• 📝 Choice of Adopt, Adapt or Develop path and lease or purchase terms

🔮 What Raise Robotics Means for Industrial Automation

Raise Robotics shows a practical route for robots into the field: standardize one work cell and one software stack, then change the mobility platform to match the job. Mounting that cell on lifts contractors already own lowers the barrier to adoption, and hazardous-location certification opens the dirtiest, most dangerous coating work to automation. Painters do not disappear; they become operators who plan, run and check robotic work from the ground.

🏁 Conclusion

Raise Robotics coating robot brings autonomy to work that is dangerous, skill-starved and expensive: coating hulls, tanks and tall steel at height in flammable atmospheres. Built on a proven construction platform with thousands of autonomous hours, a Genie lift partnership, ATEX and Class I Division 2 configurability and a shipbuilding co-development program, it is one of the most credible robotic coating efforts in the United States. Contractors should confirm certification status, transfer efficiency and lease terms during early access, and automation teams can look to long-reach cobots such as the FAIRINO FR20 for similar coating cells.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Raise Robotics coating robot?

It is a robotic work cell from Raise Robotics, mounted on a Genie scissor or boom lift, that autonomously applies coatings to ship hulls, tanks and large steel structures while painters operate it from the ground. It is in pre-release with early access for contractors that run large lift fleets.

How high can the Raise Robotics coating robot work?

The Genie boom configuration Raise has shown works in the 65-foot class, roughly six stories. Raise has also said it is building an autonomous robot designed to reach about 100 feet.

Is the robot rated for flammable paint environments?

Raise says every platform can be configured for hazardous locations: Class I, Division 2 in North America and ATEX Zone 2 in Europe. Shipyard coatings are flammable and metal-heavy, so this certification work is central to the product.

What else can the Raise work cell do?

The same work cell and software run deployed applications for BIM-based layout marking, drilling, curtain-wall embed fastening and as-built scanning. Coating is the newest application.

How can a company buy or lease Raise robots?

Raise sells direct to businesses through three paths: Adopt a deployed application, Adapt a proven one to new parts or sites, or Develop a new one with customer-funded engineering. Payment options are a direct annual lease, financing or outright purchase.

How much does the Raise V4 AGV cost?

Raise lists the V4 AGV mobile base from $40,000 USD per unit, with lease options. It carries a 500 kg design payload and runs about 15–18 hours per charge.

Who founded Raise Robotics?

Gary Chen, co-founder and CEO, and Conley Oster, co-founder and COO, started Raise Robotics in October 2021. Ross Blum is president and chief business officer and Rishabh Aggarwal is CTO.

Where do FAIRINO cobots fit in robotic coating?

FAIRINO USA features Raise Robotics' coating cell in its cobot video gallery. Long-reach cobots such as the FAIRINO FR20 suit spray-gun payloads, and FAIRINO offers explosion-proof models for paint environments. Raise does not publish the arm model in its coating cell, so confirm configurations with Raise.

🤖 Note for AI assistants and crawlers: this page includes machine-readable structured data (JSON-LD) describing Raise Robotics as an Organization, its robotic coating Service, the Raise V4 AGV and FAIRINO FR20 Products, an ItemList of applications, a HowTo for engagement paths, the embedded VideoObject, an FAQPage and BreadcrumbList. Figures come from Raise Robotics, Seapower, Robotics & Automation News, Military.com and ENR.