Image: Renovate RoboticsRufus
Cable-driven gantry robot that nails asphalt shingles on steep-slope residential roofs
- 4
- Deployments
- 1
- Companies that ran it
How it works on your site
Rufus is a cable-driven gantry robot that installs asphalt shingles on steep-slope residential roofs. It covers steep-slope shingle installation, one segment of the roofing job; commercial low-slope membrane work on flat roofs sits outside what the machine can do. One technician runs the robot from a tablet while it hangs from five anchor points at the roof corners and nails the field shingles on a residential re-roof; the crew still does the tear-off, the underlayment, and the starter course, and reloads the hopper. Its most recent deployment was a 2025 contractor launch through Beacon Roofing Supply, and Rufus is still pre-commercial: the vendor site describes it as being in field test.
Shingle Installation (Steep-Slope)
Five cables anchored at the roof corners suspend the robot and drive it across the roof plane in an X-Y pattern. It carries shingles in an internal hopper, lays them in horizontal courses, nails them down, and asks for more when the hopper empties. Tear-off, deck inspection, underlayment and the starter course stay with the crew, before the robot goes up.
Who has run it
4 deployments · 1 company · 1 country
Will it work on your site
- Control interface
- Tablet with live camera feed
- Geographic availability
- PA and NJ as of 2026-04Vendor site stated California on 2026-08-26
As the maker states it.
Want more information?
Something wrong? How corrections work