Nailed It: Autonomous Roofing with a Nailgun-Equipped Octocopter
Matthew M. Romano, Yuxin Chen, Prince Kuevor, Owen Marshall, Ella M. Atkins · AIAA AVIATION 2021 FORUM · 2021
View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2021-3211.vid This paper presents the first demonstration of autonomous roofing with a multicopter. A DJI S1000 octocopter equipped with an off-the-shelf nailgun was used to secure shingles on an adjustable-slope roof mock-up. The nailgun was modified to allow safe, autonomous triggering from the multicopter through 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. An autonomous nailing sequence was developed 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 vertical gap on the shingle at 30 degree roof slope. Extensions to achieve a complete autonomous roofing system are discussed as future work.