The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and drones has increased in recent years in the construction industry. The progress in technology in the design and navigation of low-weight and autonomous drones and UAVs allowed for a cost-effective and more practical operation in construction management and monitoring.
An innovative automated construction monitoring and reporting framework, based on real-time data obtained from UAVs are developed, the data will be collected from multiple locations and point clouds used to construct a 3D model using photogrammetry techniques.
This new model obtained from drone images can be compared to the BIM model at various construction stages to monitor the construction progress. Besides construction scheduling and costing, this comparison can include real-time recording, reporting, billing, verification, and planning.
With the obtained automated system, a significant reduction of the effort required can be observed compared to more traditional methods, resulting in better operations, planning and effective on-site adjustments.