10 things you can do with a drone on a construction site

Drone technology is becoming increasingly relevant in areas beyond its military origins where it has being used to remotely fight wars. Companies such as Amazon and Dominos now use it to deliver customer purchases while others use it for things like disaster management and precision agriculture.

In similar vein, the construction industry, despite being usually slow to catch up on new technologies, has also found use for this technology. Common modern day uses in the field include Building surveys, where they can used to get better views ontop of roofs, Construction site inspections for dangerous and inaccessible sites as well as Health and Safety tours for HSE training for workers.

Other uses include Promotional Photography, live feed/virtual walk around, Point cloud/laser scanning and Thermal Imaging recording.

Here, Construct Digital, in great detail, breaks down each of the different ways in which drone technology can be applied during a construction project.

1. Building Surveys

Building surveyors will know that most building surveys require visibility of the buildings roof to identify its condition and assess any defects.
In most instances getting access to a roof can be tricky and often involves the erection of a scaffold, use of a cherry picker or ladders.
Using a small drone to perform the survey can save time, money and reduce health and safety risks involved with surveying a roof and other tricky areas.

2. Construction Site Inspections 

Carrying out site inspections on a busy construction site can dangerous and complicated at times.
The ability for a drone to carry out a visual inspection of high-risk areas can save time and reduce H&S risks. Drone footage can be recorded from the safety of the site cabin and then sent to project stakeholders in HD.

3. Health and Safety Inductions

Site inductions can often be a tedious exercise. Often involving a premeditated talk in the site cabin or a pre-recorded induction video…
Using a drone to fly over a site can show new site operatives H&S risks in real-time. Enabling site managers to demonstrate moving vehicles, moving cranes, or active excavation areas etc.

4. Maintenance Inspections

Carrying out planned or reactive maintenance inspections of high-up structures such as bridges, towers, roofs and scaffolding, can often involve costly access arrangements, and site personnel working at height.
Drones can provide a quicker and easier way of carrying out the inspections, feeding back HD real-time footage to the engineer or surveyor from the ground.

5. Project Progress Reports

Construction progress reports are often prepared monthly to record site progress against the project programme. These reports include the surveyor or CA taking multiple photographs of various parts of the site.
A regular drone flight can be a speedy way to record and visualise project progress. Through a series of aerial shots and HD video project stake holders can gain a better insight into the progress that has been made without actually being on-site.

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