Photos: RoboCranes at work

A worker in a protective cab on a platform, called a RoboCrane, developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Known as an aerial multiaxis platform, or AMP, the platform is suspended in air by a web of computer-controlled cables, allowing its operator to strip paint off this U.S. Air Force C-130 with relative ease.

Adapted for use by the Air Force, the RoboCrane AMP promises to drastically reduce paint-stripping time per plane, cut maintenance costs and reduce incidents of operator stress and injury. Several paint-stripping nozzles on the AMP work simultaneously to reduce by 40 to 50 percent the time it takes to strip an entire plane--a time savings of about four to five days for the C130 shown here.