Pointillism Wall Painting Drone Using Bouncing Frequency Control

Abstract

This study presents an new robotic airborne solution for autonomous wall painting using a pointillism technique. The proposed dot-painting drone is a quadcopter equipped with an additional forward propulsion unit and a spring-mounted painting pad. It is designed to bounce on a vertical wall in order to print dots at a controlled frequency along a predefined trajectory. A dynamic model of the system is derived and used to control accurately the bouncing frequency as well as the position of the robot. The performance of the system is validated experimentally, demonstrating successful indoor painting capability of pointillism drawing on vertical walls. This work represents a first step toward fully autonomous, large-scale mural reproduction using aerial robotics.