Nailed It: Autonomous Roofing with a Nailgun-Equipped Octocopter
This addresses the problem of automating roofing tasks for construction or robotics applications, but it is incremental as it builds on existing multicopter and tool technology.
This paper tackled the problem of autonomous roofing by demonstrating a multicopter equipped with a nailgun that can nail within a three centimeter gap on a shingle, using a modified off-the-shelf nailgun and an open-source autopilot.
This paper presents the first demonstration of autonomous roofing with a multicopter. A DJI S1000 octocopter equipped with an off-the-shelf nailgun and an adjustableslope roof mock-up were used. The nailgun was modified to allow triggering from the vehicle and tooltip compression feedback. A mount was designed to adjust the angle to match representative roof slopes. An open-source octocopter autopilot facilitated controller adaptation for the roofing application. A state machine managed autonomous nailing sequences using smooth trajectories designed to apply prescribed contact forces for reliable nail deployment. Experimental results showed that the system is capable of nailing within a required three centimeter gap on the shingle. Extensions to achieve a complete autonomous roofing system are discussed as future work.