Applications of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Construction With a Case Study on Levee Inspection

Abstract

The history of Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, can be traced back as far as the late 19th century. Since early 2000’s, technological advancement of UAV began to accelerate rapidly. As a result, new affordable and simplistic UAVs have quickly emerged in the field of building construction, especially in the areas of filed inspection, construction progress monitoring, site logistic management, safety control and earth work estimation. This paper reviews the current status of UAV implementation in construction, including its hardware and software development and applications on construction jobsites. A case study is also presented on the procedure and cost anaylsis of using a UAV for a levee system inspection. In the conclusion, this paper includes discussion of potential benefits of UAVs for specific construction processes in the future.