Remote Construction Management Using Drones
Multi-rotor and fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles designed to carry a payload of information collection technology with navigation and control systems that permit remote and autonomous flight within and beyond the line of sight.
The five overarching uses of industrial drones are inspections, surveying, monitoring, photography and films, and emergency response. Otherwise called Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), drones in the energy sector offer a myriad of high-resolution data solutions for such things as:
HOW DRONES USE POINT-CLOUD DATA IN CONSTRUCTION
Drones are essentially flying data loggers. Industrial drones could be equipped with a host of useful attachments that capture different data in different ways.
From 360-degree cameras to gas sensors and more, the uses of industrial drones are wide-ranging. For construction site aerial surveying, a camera equipped with LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) collects scanned point-cloud data.
A remote-sensing system, LiDAR computes distances to surfaces below, mapping its structure and density. It is geo-located data. This point-cloud data forms a visual representation of the topography under analysis – in the case of construction management, the facility over which the drone flies.
Assuming Wi-Fi is present, the drone automatically uploads the collected data (in this case, the point-cloud) to cloud storage. In the absence of Wi-Fi for particularly remote or under-developed contexts, operators can manually upload the data after the drone has completed its flyover. Software, like?MODS Reality, then stitches that raw data into a?data mesh.
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Point-cloud and mesh data may sound like abstract or techie concepts. Still, this high-density drone – accurate to within five millimeter – enables specialist software to output navigable data-laden as-built models.
As-built imagery from drones can be used to understand and both communicate construction progress and conformity with the 3D design model.
If you are interested in more information on remote construction management using drones and some of the examples from our software, check out our blog.
This article first appeared on MODS Energy Industry Blog?https://blog.mods.solutions/industrial-drone-inspection
To learn more about how MODS uses drone footage to help with remote management of large sites, visit?MODS Reality.