Exploratory Study of Potential Applications of Unmanned Aerial Systems for Construction Management Tasks
01 May 2016-Journal of Management in Engineering (American Society of Civil Engineers)-Vol. 32, Iss: 3, pp 05016001-05016001
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an exploratory case study to identify potential applications of visual assets obtained from UAVs for construction management tasks, including project progress monitoring, job site logistics, evaluating safety conditions, and quality inspections among other secondary management tasks.
Abstract: Despite studies exploring potential applications of unmanned aerial systems (UASs), the particular use and value of visual assets (photographs or video) collected with UASs for construction management tasks is not well understood. This paper presents an exploratory case study to identify potential applications of visual assets obtained from UASs for construction management tasks. The case study involved the development of a visual assets database from UAS-based images and videos collected during UAS flights at jobsites in the United States and Brazil as well as semi-structured interviews with construction project personnel. The results revealed potential applications of UASs mainly for project progress monitoring, job site logistics, evaluating safety conditions, and quality inspections among other secondary management tasks. In addition, an analysis of costs related to the use of UASs was performed. The main contribution of this case study is a better understanding of the use of UASs for construction management tasks and their regulatory and cost implications.
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: In this paper, a framework for performance-based laboratory testing of cementitious mixtures for construction-scale 3D printing is developed, where workability of a fresh "printing mixture" is studied in terms of print quality, shape stability, and printability window.
411 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors address the technical challenges for the industrial implementation of additive manufacturing of construction materials, e.g., materials formulation standardization, and interfacial bonding quality between the deposited layers.
171 citations
Cites background from "Exploratory Study of Potential Appl..."
...the utilisation of drone technology on construction sites has been investigated for applications such as safety inspection [6] and 3D modelling of the site [7]....
[...]
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that many fields are showing increasing interest in utilizing multi-rotor drones, such as mapping in mining and surveillance, and that many applications have shown an increase in their interest in using them.
Abstract: Multirotor drones are considered a new and innovative technology. Therefore, many fields are showing increasing interest in utilizing multirotor drones, such as mapping in mining and surveillance i...
162 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a review of state-of-the-art methods in a typical vision-based scheme, and discuss challenges associated with their application, aiming to guide practitioners to find suitable approaches for a particular project.
Abstract: Computer vision has been gaining interest in a wide range of research areas in recent years, from medical to industrial robotics. The architecture, engineering and construction and facility management sector ranks as one of the most intensive fields where vision-based systems/methods are used to facilitate decision making processes during the construction phase. Construction sites make efficient monitoring extremely tedious and difficult due to clutter and disorder. Extensive research has been carried out to investigate the potential to utilise computer vision for assisting on-site managerial tasks. This paper reviews studies on computer vision in the past decade, with a focus on state-of-the-art methods in a typical vision-based scheme, and discusses challenges associated with their application. This research aims to guide practitioners to successfully find suitable approaches for a particular project.
145 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors assess the applicability of UAV for safety inspection on construction sites, focusing on the identification of the requirement that can be inspected and the non-compliances with the safety requirements established.
130 citations
References
More filters
01 May 2012
TL;DR: Using geo-referenced UAV high resolution aerial photographic imagery, the project documented the before, during and after stages of the Southern Parkway construction near the new Saint George International airport, in addition to photographing and classifying wetland plant species in the Utah Lake wetland mitigation bank on the North East corner of Utah Lake as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: This research involved the use of high-resolution aerial photography obtained from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) to aid the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) in monitoring and documenting State Roadway structures and associated issues. Using geo-referenced UAV high resolution aerial photographic imagery, the project documented the before, during and after stages of the Southern Parkway construction near the new Saint George International airport, in addition to photographing and classifying wetland plant species in the Utah Lake wetland mitigation bank on the North East corner of Utah Lake.
22 citations
Additional excerpts
...2004), Utah (Barfuss et al. 2012), and Georgia (Irizarry and Johnson 2014; Karan et al....
[...]
01 Jul 2006
TL;DR: The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed self-adaptive image matching technique can achieve high automation and real-time processing purpose for response to time-critical disaster applications.
Abstract: Video image matching to find tie points is one of important steps for merging dynamic, narrow field-of-view aerial video into a mosaic orthoimage. Because of its high data sampling rates and inherent characteristics of inconsistent and unstable flying of low-cost unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), automatically matching of video data is still a big challenge and ongoing effort. This paper presents a self-adaptive image matching technique to automatically and effectively seek the conjugate points. The basic steps involves: (1) automatically extracting frame from video stream at real-time according to any given location or time slot, in order to save the post-processing time; (2) self-adaptively adjusting parallax of two neighbor frames to predict conjugate points to reduce searching space; and (3) the accuracy of image matching result is self-estimated using the technique of two-view co-planar geometry constructed by conjugated points and baseline. Based on the estimated accuracy value, the iteration for increasing or decreasing sample time slice to obtain new image pair is determined. The experimental results demonstrated that this proposed method can achieve high automation and real-time processing purpose for response to time-critical disaster applications.
19 citations
"Exploratory Study of Potential Appl..." refers background in this paper
...For instance, aerial video collected by visible or infrared cameras deployed on UAS platforms is rapidly emerging as a low cost and widely used source of imagery for time-critical disaster response to applications (Wu and Zhou 2006), or for the purpose of wildfire surveillance (Wu et al....
[...]
15 Jun 2014
TL;DR: Shields, Ph.D., P.E. as discussed by the authors is an associate professor in Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction in the Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Abstract: David R. Shields, Ph.D., P.E. Dr. Shields is an Associate Professor in Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction in the Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He has received two outstanding faculty awards and two service awards at UNLV. He has over 25 years of industry and government experience in construction, engineering, and research and eight years of academic experience. He was Co-Chair of the ASCE Civil Engineering in the Oceans V conference. He was the only manager in the 55-year history of the Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory ever to win the Employee-of-the-Year Award. He has won numerous awards for project management. He has conducted research for the Construction Industry Institute, Center for Construction Industry Studies, U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, OSHA and other organizations. He has published 45 journal and conference papers. He holds a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and the M.S. and B.S. in Ocean Engineering from Texas A&M University.
19 citations
15 Nov 2007
TL;DR: The results demonstrated that the geo-accuracy of mosaic image generated from UAV video can achieve 1-2 pixels in planimetry and its combination with GIS-supported data for fast response to time-critical event, e.g., forest fire, is descried.
Abstract: UAV Video is rapidly emerging as a widely used source of imagery for many applications in recent years. This paper presents our research on the UAV video processing system for the purpose of fire surveillance, which include: (1) UAV video stream processing. This step involves three aspects: decoding, re-sampling and matching. Microsoft(R) DirectX(R) technology is used to decode highly compressed video stream and re-sampled them into still video frame based on the time base and rate of UAV navigation sensor. One feature-based image-matching algorithm is developed to quickly obtain Tie points for latter calibration operation. (2) UAV system orientation. This step also involves three aspects: Camera IOP, Boresight Alignment and bundle adjustment. TSAI's two-stage technique is used to obtain initial camera focus length f , distortion coefficients k 1 and six Exterior Of Parameter (EOP) for one selected video image. Meanwhile, the Boresight Matrix is deduced by the comparison of GPS/INS derived parameters with solved EOPs. Further more, all parameters including EOPs of all re-sampled video images and camera IOP are optimally estimated based on developed bundle adjustment algorithm. (3) UAV Video geo-registration and mosaic. All re-sampled video frames are geo-registered into uniform geo-reference coordinate frame vice Classic photogrammetric orthorectification model and merge with each other with developed mosaic algorithm. The results demonstrated that the geo-accuracy of mosaic image generated from UAV video can achieve 1-2 pixels in planimetry and its combination with GIS-supported data for fast response to time-critical event, e.g., forest fire, is descried.© (2007) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
18 citations
"Exploratory Study of Potential Appl..." refers background in this paper
...For instance, aerial video collected by visible or infrared cameras deployed on UAS platforms is rapidly emerging as a low cost and widely used source of imagery for time-critical disaster response to applications (Wu and Zhou 2006), or for the purpose of wildfire surveillance (Wu et al. 2007)....
[...]
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss a novel approach related to monitoring construction projects in the field, allowing for site-based personnel to be reduced and expert opinions to be obtained without a physical site presence.
Abstract: This paper discusses a novel approach related to monitoring construction projects in the field, allowing for site-based personnel to be reduced and expert opinions to be obtained without a physical site presence. The idea involves bonded streaming capability for live video and audio from mobile cameras anywhere on a construction site to team members located off site. True bonded wireless air card technology provides sufficient bandwidth to transmit high-quality video and audio transmissions. Remotely located team members can visually instruct and guide the operator of the portable video camera equipment around the site to accomplish their duties in a telepresent or virtual fashion (e.g., performing remote site safety inspections, progress updates, or quality inspections), thereby saving the time and cost of physical site visits. Numerous case studies using this approach were conducted on a variety of project types, including residential, commercial, and transportation. Results from user feedback i...
16 citations