Drones Application In Construction

Drones application in construction

Introduction

The main reasons that would justify the use of a construction drone are diverse. First for its potential to plan, promote or market new works or projects. For example, through virtual reality techniques and 3D digital models it is possible.

From the strictly constructive point of view, the use of drones will allow a better monitoring of the works, both from the point of view of the progress of the work and the inspection of the work units, the logistics of the works or the suitability ofMeasures safety and hygiene at work. Also, drones offer enormous potential for the execution of 3D tasks, dangerous, dirty and boring tasks.

Linear works such as roads or train tracks need wide prior work in land analysis. From the appearance of drones in civil engineering, the realization of land scan is much easier (it is not necessaryFast (drones allow accessibility to remote places much faster), sure (it is not necessary for operators to approach dangerous land) and cheap (saving in time and security measures, the processes are cheaper).

Developing

Advantages of drones in construction

The drones in construction make it possible to achieve the information necessary for the design of roads, bridges, highways and other civil works constructions from the air. That, if not, the use of a plane would be needed, investing more time and resources necessary, obtaining less precise, less abundant and worse quality information than those obtained with the use of drones. Without forgetting the reduction of occupational hazards and pollutant emissions that are obtained with the use of drones in construction.

In the future one of the potential applications of drones in construction, would be the lifting of skyscrapers with heights unknown so far and in locations that could not be done today. They would be possible thanks to combining drones with the use of new construction materials and construction computer models (BIM).

To conclude, we will signal that there are various professional solutions that allow the development of drone activity in construction. The Vronte Highway is a high precision airplane system, which gives us the necessary capabilities to any type of drone for the treatment of top-fuse data from sensors, multispectral cameras and vision cameras.

Facilities that give us use drones in the label of the there are several areas in the construction title, where we can use construction, it is not used only for the technical inspection in works;Depending on the area of your interest, it is for the

which must be chosen the most suitable equipment and that gives us more or less benefits, that is, the greater or lesser advantage of the device technology. Without distinction, the use of drones in the construction area, allows its general air records, whether photographic or videos, can be used for:

• • Periodic measurement of work advances
• • Technical inspection of works for sectors of more height and more difficult access
• • Promotion and/or marketing of projects
• • Inspection of facilities for predictive maintenance planning

The most relevant areas, which for now we will describe and in which we could obtain multiple results:

In the topography area

Drones today provide multiple advantages over the use of traditional equipment. They are faster, generate more data and do it more safely, without having to personally access dangerous places. The terrain scanned with drones is processed on the ground to obtain a 3D model with centimeted resolution and a precision of between 1 and 5cm as required. Even if the land to work is smaller. The advantages of drones in topography are clear:

• Security, it is not necessary for the operator to personally take the station to risky places.
• Greater coverage, some points are simply inaccessible to people. A projection in the middle of a cliff, or a clear surrounded by trees are no problem for a drone.
• More information, as a traditional survey manages to determine a series of points that serve to create a precise plane. The topographic lifting of a drone captures millions of points at the same time and also adds the color information of the photographs, which achieves high -resolution points clouds that show the real appearance of the land.

In the area of cartography

Drones, in recent years, have become one of the tools to obtain information with a reduced temporal resolution and with a high spatial resolution, both photographs and points.

The process of obtaining the data becomes from 2D flat images to 3D images for this, the stereoscopy technique is used. The images taken from a drone are sub orthogonal, since they are rarely orthogonal.

Once the data is collected, specialized software capable of performing photogrammetric processing and the subsequent treatment of these are exported, creating a cloud of points with rectangular coordinates X, Y, Z, a digital land model (MDT) and composition of an ortho imageGEO referenced.

Subsequently to obtain cartographic products, softwares are used such as: Autocad, Arc Gis. In addition to obtaining the cards, virtual videos can be made in the sight of bird’s bird with the data captured by the drone. Some advantages of using drones in cartography are:

• Drones flights are cheaper than photogrammetric flights.
• They do not interfere with commercial airlines and therefore can be arranged more quickly.
• Additionally, since the data obtained are stored in digital format, these can be easily introduced into cartography software for the management and administration of the same.

In electric lines

Since electrical lines and substations have, in general, elements that are located in height, away from the safety of the scope of people and in topography sectors of difficult access, it is very useful to have aerial vehicles that allow direct and close accessto the elements of the electrical installations, to make the inspection of these.

This is why drones allow inspecting the lines in difficult access points;They are a very useful complementary measure to the thermographs that are made with helicopters and do not need to interrupt the service to customers advancing any possible breakdown and guaranteeing a better service.

A great advantage is that Wiring inspections via airhigh-voltage network.

Therefore, what is achieved using drone technology is to reduce danger, time and money and more security and control is provided. According to Abelardo Reinosos (High Voltage Network Director of Spain), ensures that thanks to these devices the safety in the work is increased since the operators have to work in height. In addition, it emphasizes that drones represent a 20% increase in the productivity of operations and help reduce their costs by up to 30%.

For inspection with aerial thermography

Thermography is a technique created in the twentieth century which is used in industrial, construction and energy sectors. Infrared thermography is a fundamental tool for a good analysis of the state of the buildings envelope, to locate possible thermal bridges, insulation defects, humidity and many other pathologies of buildings.

In the industrial sector (high voltage towers, wind turbines, chimneys, photovoltaic plants, etc.) It is also fundamental, where heat is one of the variables that must be controlled in production processes. And, of course, in the electrical facilities of the industries and any other sector. It is because of the above that the incorporation of thermographic chambers into the drones, is opening a novel air thermography application field within reach of a greater number of companies.

Example of the use of aerial thermography in our country, is the case of Codelco Radomiro Tomic Division, which with this procedure will identify the abnormal temperatures of the elements of the conveyor belts, which will allow to change the spareness before it fails. Currently, this process is carried out in a timely and manual way, which sometimes increases exposure to the line of fire.

In mining

Drones today give a great help to the mining industry since they can be used from prospecting to locate the deposits and, subsequently, of exploration and research, to know their morphology and the characteristics or properties of them. In a posterior phase with the drones, control and exploitation cubications of the usable minerals will be carried out.

Some characteristics of the use of drones in the prospecting of the mining industry are:

• They are non -intrusive geophysical methods that do not cause environmental impacts or damages.
• A large multitude of data types can be collected quickly and economically.
• It is possible to cover large areas, significantly reducing the costs of prospecting large surfaces.
• Not necessary terrestrial accesses or occupation permits.
• The opening of calicatas in the field is not required and, consequently, the corresponding permits or licenses.
• The data can be collected from remote areas, rugged and with dense vegetation coverage.

 

Benefits and profits of drones in construction

The technical architects and architects involved in the building process, always have to be up to date on the use of the new tools that exist in the market and thus, help and solve the needs that their customers have.

One of the clearest advantages of the use of drones in construction is that it allows to recreate the terrain through 3D infographics, thus being able to insert them into aerial photos, and see and analyze the shape and finish of a construction of a virtual way. Or complement it with virtual videos much more visual than traditional promotions.

Another advantageous utility of the Vant, is to, to be able to map the environment of a building, helping technicians in design and information taking, more easily and efficiently.

It should also be highlighted, the great utility that drones have when supervising the progress of constructions from the air, especially those of large size in which it is difficult to control every detail.

Uses for construction -related companies

But it is not only the construction companies that benefit from the advance of drones, also real estate. Until now, a future client should wait until the work was finished or imagine on the plane what is now possible. The flight of these aircraft allows you to faithfully reproduce the vision that a buyer will have of his home, from his finishes or a 360º aerial view of his home still under construction ”.

It is also being used by municipalities and public bodies to discover illegal constructions (swimming pools, non -legalized housing extensions, housing construction in non -urbanizable soils) as can be seen, the uses and advantages are multiple, and it could be said that it could be said thatDrones are the present for many construction companies that want to optimize their procedures. In addition, vant is expected to be able to many more tasks in the not too distant future, and specifically, in construction, since they can change and fix structures built through innovative architecture elements.

How are drones classified?

Drones can be classified by various parameters. There are so many types of drones that can be easily found in so many different applications that we cannot define a single fixed criterion for classification.

According to your weight

If we focus on the design characteristics to generate support we can make a classification between fixed wing and rotating wing or rotor. We can perform the weight classification being the most common classification up to 2kg of weight, 2 to 5 kg of weight, 5 to 25 kg, 25 to 150 kg and more than 150 kg of weight.

According to your activity

If we focus on your destination for use we can make a first division between civil use and military use. One of the most common applications is drone technology for military use.

In the civil field we can make a division for medical uses, for industrial uses, for audiovisual, agricultural, security and emergency, recreational, etc.

These are the most common parameters to classify drones, although we can find other classifications: by types and models, types of drones depending on size, types of drones according to their skills or strengths,

In the case of drones for industrial uses, they are incorporated from a radiometric thermographic chamber to identify thermal gradients, heat points, thermal bridges, etc. to be able to perform predictive and preventive maintenance of the facilities.

Drones are also used for agricultural purposes, either irrigating fields with fertilizer products or other models with multispectral cameras to detect water stress, early detection of diseases, fumigation monitoring, etc.

In livestock, drones with thermal cameras are also used to locate lost, rugged, sick animals or counts.

In the field of safety and emergencies in addition to normal RGB cameras with a powerful zoom, they also incorporate thermographic cameras to locate lost people, people at sea, detect intrusion into areas.

For the construction sector, drones have also contributed to the sector, there are various types of drones for topography.

Practically all of these drones can be preprogrammed with GPS. These mechanisms are oriented in space thanks to special software.

How many and what types of drones are there?

We could say that, today, there are practically already a type of drones for each task that can exist in the different sectors mentioned above.

All this depends on the types of cameras for drones that have incorporated, it also depends on types of engines specially designed for drones that each model has incorporated, as well as the type of propellers.

Interest in drones is increasing between consumers and for commercial use. In 2017, drone sales increased by 33 percent compared to the previous year, according to the NPD Group Research firm.

Drones types and models

In response to drone types and models, the DJI manufacturer practically monopolizes the entire current market both at a professional and recreational level. Other manufacturers such as Parrot try to find a hole in a professional field, a part of the professional and recreational market, it does not have just started in the market.

Different companies periodically launch different types of drones to monopolize all sectors. They generally make available to the professional and personal user a wide range of types of configurations for these such as … engines, cameras and propellers.

Another company called Parrot has launched several models for the professional sector in recent months, this has a camera that gets to capture images in 180 degrees vertically. It also has a 3D Parrot Babop-Pro designed for the world of architecture, construction, etc. The fixed wing model Parot Disco Pro AG, specially designed for precision agriculture, incorporate the Sequoia multispectral chamber forming a very appropriate tandem for agricultural use. Without forgetting the barbop-prarot, which has a thermographic radiometric camera with a slightly scarce resolution according to what committed.

conclusion

To conclude, the drone serves, for example, to review the quality of the steel connections on a bridge located 22 meters from the ground that connects the main tower with a parking structure.We will signal that there are various professional solutions that allow the development of drones activity in construction. Finally, and not less important are the applications that can be carried out by combining the abilities of drones with other technologies such as digital manufacturing, BIM and new construction materials, for example and especially, for the construction of skyscrapers of thefuture.