| Truck Washing in the future will be fully robotic in | | | | strategies used and they most likely will not be a lot |
| order to save labor and currently at least one | | | | of hand washing, which is too labor intensive and the |
| manufacturer has a bus wash machine that is 54 feet | | | | availability of labor not easy to attain and still keep |
| long and can wash a bus in approximately 9 minutes. | | | | the price point low to compete with machines that |
| We were impressed with this concept and interested | | | | do washing. |
| in its possible uses. | | | | The robotic machines will also have to be better at |
| Currently over the road trucks are boxy in shape | | | | getting the trucks clean and will need to do it fully |
| although in the future they will not be and thus there | | | | automatically or with extremely little labor. This will |
| might be some more re-engineering needed at | | | | require strategies such as optical flow sensors, sonar |
| Belanger especially considering Luigi Colani's Futuristic | | | | or electronic eyes (used in some high-tech robotic |
| Truck Designs which reduce coefficients of drag by | | | | carwashes). However in 10-years we will see many |
| 50% or more. With body lines on that level the | | | | trucks coated with self-cleaning paints, that will not |
| Belanger Bus Washing Unit would be challenged in it | | | | need washing very often, as the dirt will repel itself |
| current configuration. | | | | from the paint or be collected and the as soon as |
| Another interesting concept was the Vader Brush | | | | water hits it, run right off, similar to self-cleaning |
| Wash System which was set upon an industrial cart | | | | window coatings. |
| or rail with a vertical rotating brush, which was | | | | With the impending advent of carbon nano-tube |
| manufactured Canadian Company. When using this | | | | construction painted surfaces can be hit with an |
| unit we found we could adequately clean a tour bus | | | | energy beam and the dirt will be pulled off the |
| in about 15 minutes. While a full hand wash with soft | | | | surface through ionic attraction. But also realize that |
| bristle brushes took about 15-22 minutes depending | | | | by this time we will see very few fossil fuel motors |
| on the dirtiness of the bus and type. A semi-truck in | | | | that have sticky exhaust, so the intervals between |
| about 18 minutes depending on the cab type. | | | | washing will have been doubled or even tripled even |
| In the future to wash the volume of trucks that | | | | if the truck, trailer or bus has special coatings or |
| need to be washed we will see many different | | | | carbon nano-tube construction. |