Heavy snow falls are more often because of climate changes. Roofus is an autonomous vehicle designed for roof snow removing. It was developed as a response for a tragedy that happened in Poland: in 2006 a huge market hall collapsed and 66 people died. One of the reason was roof snow overload. There were no dedicated devices that could work on to roof at that time.

The solution was to design a vehicle dedicated to work on the roof: lightweight, autonomous, with rubber caterpillars for roof safety.

Project captured international attention. Together with other 9 designers I was a finalist of Japan Design Foundation ROBOT2 Competition in 2007. It was also featured on Yanko Design.

Roofus is transported on the roof with a crane or lift. As it moves forward its blade rotates, cuts the snow and throw it into the container (inside vehicle). When snow load inside container reaches 250kg, pressure sensor stops blade, vehicle comes back to the drop point and empty the container. This process is repeated.

Vehicle is autonomous. It has rangefinder sensors on the front, rear and sides. The system requires two external antennas placed on the edges of the roof to verify vehicle’s position.

Roofus don’t know nothing about the roof shape (at the beginning). Its CPU records the vehicle movement and creates a map of the roof during work.

Whole vehicle is made of plastics – container and wheels - and duraluminium with only few parts made of iron – so it’s lightweight. It has rubber caterpillars for roofing safety.

It has interchangeable endings - to compensate the cost of the vehicle during non-winter months. It can work on the ground as a mower, foliage cleaner in park, road cleaner on parking areas.

1:5 scale real life model helped to verify design integrity.