The sight of the 72-foot-tall, 67-ton robot billed as the world’s largest industrial robot wowed a host of robotics enthusiasts, Dutch officials, founders of tech startups, and even children brought in by parents.

Xyrec, a Netherlands-based company, showcased its gargantuan technology at a public demonstration held last week at Kelly Field, where the company built a custom hangar in Port San Antonio.

Xyrec’s robot strips paint from planes, replacing what has always been a toxic and tedious hand-made ordeal with a new, streamlined process.

The robot picks up the paint with a powerful laser, housed in a box the size of a car. The laser bounces through mirrors up the robot’s mast and out of its arm, which can articulate a position with six axes of motion on fully electric motors. The laser shot emits a peculiar sound of groaning and groaning. It’s the sound of air molecules heating up and paint escaping from the metal surface of the plane.

The evaporated paint creates a harmful gas which is instantly sucked and filtered, leaving behind a small pile of gray dust.

Xyrec chairman and founder Peter Boeijink said the process of fully dismantling a commercial aircraft such as a Boeing 777 would take around five days and require two robot operators. The traditional process would have more than a dozen workers using a lot of water and harsh chemicals to do the same job in about 11 days.

Boeijink said he started using this technology in 2008, when he discovered the traditional process. “I’ve seen how a terrible environmental thing is going on here, but also, look at the people who are working on it – it’s extremely unhealthy.”

The Southwest Research Institute, whose location in San Antonio led Boeijink to base Xyrec’s North American operations in the city last year, designed the robot to Boeijink’s specifications.

Port San Antonio provided a 7,000 square foot custom hangar and facility to its industrial airport, Kelly Field. Here, Xyrec robots are assembled by local engineers and company manufacturing specialists, using parts sourced from the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Japan and the United States, between others.

The machines have recently entered the market. While there are no confirmed clients yet, “there is serious interest,” Boeijink told the San Antonio Report, but declined to provide details.

Xyrec’s location at Kelly Field puts it close to a potential customer, Boeing, which operates a massive military aircraft maintenance and repair facility there. The aerospace giant is also using the facility to transform Boeing 777s into custom planes for foreign heads of state.

Xyrec’s business model offers “robots as a service”, which means that giant machines are not sold, but rather rented to customers. They can be retrofitted with different tools and features beyond a paint stripping laser, like an inkjet printer.

Xyrec’s demonstration last week drew people from many other robotics shops in town (in addition to representatives from the Dutch Foreign Ministry). In the crowd, Erik Nieves, founder of Plus One Robotics, which raised $ 33 million in investor funding earlier this year, as well as Ryan Saavedra, the young founder of robotic prosthetics start-up Alt-Bionics.

Even those robotics veterans were in awe of Xyrec’s robot.

“The scale is – it’s just amazing,” said Kris Kozac, founder of Hatchbed, a San Antonio-based company. autonomous robotics company.

San Antonio’s small but tight-knit robotics scene became a topic of discussion during a panel that brought together Boeijink alongside Paul Evans, director of research and development at the Southwest Research Institute, and Paco Felici, chief office in Port San Antonio.

Evans said the robotics scene is “well qualified” to collaborate on solutions. “There are a lot of people you can reach out to, and they will be making presentations and helping with issues,” he said.

Felici said that an additional engine of growth could be the port’s next innovation hub, currently under construction, which promises to bring together experts from various fields and companies.

Boeijink was the authority on his dream of growing the stage.

“I have a very strong vision to create a robotics family in San Antonio, where robotics companies come together with different skills, visions, funding, knowledge and can use each other’s position in the market.” , did he declare.