Drones

Editor's note: Rod Dir is CEO of Talon, a infrastructure data capture firm.

Drones have been widely used in road and tower construction projects for a while, but now drone use is making inroads into other types of construction jobs. That's a positive development because, when used correctly and to the fullest potential, drones can help construction companies operate more efficiently while keeping workers safer and more productive. 

Before starting a drone program, the key is to understand exactly how it can improve your operation. If you don't take the time to explore how a drone program can replace current processes and generate greater efficiencies, you'll end up with a cool toy that doesn't create as much value as it's capable of providing. It's worth the effort to find out how drones can deliver a great return on your investment.

One of the most popular and effective uses of drones in construction today is in surveying sites and capturing preconstruction images, which can significantly improve site engineering work. Safety is a top concern for construction companies too, and you can use a drone to improve safety by surveying sites for hazardous materials and other dangers remotely. 

Another top pain point for construction companies is the time lost between when work on a particular construction phase is finished and an inspection is required so that the project can move forward. With drone images and the right software, you can do inspections in real time, with offsite experts evaluating work and flagging deficiencies so the crew can address them before leaving the site. 

Construction companies can use drone captures and a good software platform to index the work completed against an audit checklist. The construction crew can upload images of most any type of work, including plumbing, electrical and drywall work for an inspector to evaluate instead of waiting hours or even days for an onsite inspection. Drones are also a great way to create marketing and promotional material and keep clients updated during a build, capturing a bird's-eye view of the project at various stages and making visits to faraway sites unnecessary.

Automation and collaboration

A drone program can enhance safety and yield greater efficiency in all the ways outlined above and more, but to truly maximize returns on the investment, you need a platform to store the images and data gathered by drones and enable collaboration across teams. Companies that don't have a robust system for storing, sharing and filing these images are missing out on this aspect of the value drones can bring.

Many first-time drone users fall into this trap. They'll routinely file images on network drives or in an email, but when they want to go back and access those images, there's no easy way to find them. With a platform, you can organize images in a way that makes your drone program more productive and efficient. You can add labels, e.g., rooftop, foundation, etc., that are indexed so you can do a quick search and find what you need. 

Organized and indexed data and imagery on a platform are excellent tools that you can use beyond the immediate needs of single project. Construction companies can access that material for training and engineering purposes and more. Even better, with a platform that incorporates artificial intelligence and machine learning, you can use data to automate tasks like inspections by teaching the software to identify defects like gaps in a wall, etc. That saves even more time and money. 

Information into action

One thing to know before you start a drone program is that drones produce a ton of data, and that information belongs to your company. It's a valuable commodity that your drone program will produce, and you'll want to make sure that data is transformed into actionable insights that can improve your operation instead of languishing untapped on someone's hard drive. 

Drones can collect data and capture images from the field that are incredibly valuable before, during and after a construction project. They can help you save time and money by eliminating unnecessary site visits and expediting inspections so that electrical and plumbing work is signed off before drywall goes up and drywall work is approved before paint goes on the wall. 

With the popularity of drone technologies, storing data and providing an effective way to make data accessible can be challenging. The data is only valuable if it can be easily viewed and enhanced for a useful purpose.

Cloud storage platforms such as AWS, IBM and Microsoft Azure allow team members to access the data from multiple sources and provide the needed storage. Other companies will store the data in-house on company servers but these can be overwhelmed by the volume of images and open the door to security concerns. However, solution providers like my firm can process the images for specific use cases, improve the viewing experience and allow collaboration across multiple users on the same content.

The key is to pair technology like drones with a platform that allows you to get the full value of the data you collect. This will enable you to keep workers safer and more productive while improving collaboration and automating core tasks for greater efficiency. 

Dive Brief:

• U.S. construction technology investor funding has reached a record $2.1 billion so far this year, more than a 100% increase from a year ago.
• Early stage funding increased close to 100% from 2020, while late stage funding jumped more than 150% percent during that same span, according to Construction Dive analysis of data from investment information platform Crunchbase.
• Industry experts say the COVID-19 pandemic sparked this boom in investor activity, but that the industry is still in the early phase of innovation.

Dive Insight:

After a slight dip in 2020 as activity in the U.S. slowed due to uncertainty caused by the pandemic, contech funding exploded in 2021. Early stage funding in 2021 reached $738.3 million, while late stage funding increased to $1.1 billion, both all-time records. 

Those are big jumps from a year ago. Early stage funding in 2020 reached $374.9 million, while late stage funding reached $417.4 million, according to Crunchbase data.

"Our take on what happened was that basically two or three years' worth of construction tech adoption got squeezed into the nine months post-pandemic because everyone was shifting to being offsite, socially distancing and virtual tools," said Henry D'Esposito, construction research lead at JLL, a global commercial real estate services company. "So, there was a huge demand for adoption. If you see rising adoption numbers, new customers, more profitability, then that gives investors a good reason to want to invest in a sector."

The recent increase in contech investor activity is due to a combination of overall interest and awareness of the opportunities in the market and valuable companies emerging within certain segments, raising larger growth rounds, said Wan Li Zhu, managing director of Suffolk Technologies, the technology and tech startup investment arm of Suffolk.

For example, real estate development startup Veev raised more than $100 million in funding in March. OpenSpace, a data visualization software, raised $55 million in funding in April. Briq, a payments software company, raised $30 million in June. The Suffolk Technologies portfolio company EquipmentShare announced a $230 million round in July. Numerous other companies have also raised millions of dollars in 2021.

Digital collaboration, scanning, safety and wearables and BIM were among the construction tech categories most boosted by the pandemic, according to JLL. On the other hand, equipment, payment tools, 3D-printing, artificial intelligence and modular construction were the least strengthened by the pandemic.

"One point we're considering is whether every type of construction tech has benefited from the pandemic,” said D'Esposito. "I would say it's clear that software has really benefited, whereas hardware is maybe more of a mixed bag."

For example, while contech funding has skyrocketed to record levels year to date, modular builder Katerra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the summer. The company was a technology-driven offsite construction company, largely funded by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, that ultimately could not overcome the challenges of the pandemic.

"There have been other areas where we've seen some challenges, I think the most common example is probably going to be modular construction," said D'Esposito. "There's been a ton of success in modular but others haven't done so well, so that's probably one negative. But the majority of the story for contech is positive."

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By DroneDeploy

ConTech Conversations presents a discussion with a leader in the construction technology field each month. Click here for past discussions.

The field of construction technology is advancing at a rapid clip. From 3D printing to robots rolling onto jobsites, construction professionals are reevaluating how they approach work, and what tools they need for the job.

This creates a new wave of opportunity for construction technology firms looking to cash in on an advancement boom in the field. One of those firms is Versatile, maker of CraneView, a type of monitoring software that has been adopted by industry giants like Gilbane, Turner, DPR and others. The software’s success has brought it some attention — the company recently closed out an $80 million Series B funding round, featuring investors such as Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH, Entrée Capital and Root Ventures.

Here, Versatile CEO and co-founder Meirav Oren talks with Construction Dive about the company’s vision, how construction tech firms can attract investors and the biggest problems affecting construction and contech today.

Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
 

CONSTRUCTION DIVE: Give us background on Versatile and CraneView. How did it all start?

MEIRAV OREN: My father was a general contractor, my brother is a project manager, shamefully enough, I ended up at Intel. I'm pretty sure my dad thought I would be the best superintendent the world has ever seen, and I had other plans. You know how that works. 

But kidding aside, a couple of years ago, my brother lost a worker on his jobsite. That changed the conversation from a normal Friday night construction debate to “why is this happening?” It led to the belief that guides Versatile and every product they will ever put out there: to say construction is manufacturing, jobsites are really factories, and the process can and should be controlled to the level of advanced process control, which is where we'll eventually get to. 

The only other element that became very clear that night is if we wanted to make an impact and really empower the incredible men and women that we serve out there, we better naturally fit the workflows. I think I started by calling it "non-intrusive" and later on, found a positive way of saying it. So "naturally fit workflows" means you don't ask anyone to change for you. You don't ask them to do anything, you just create value. 

What do you think of the field of construction technology currently?

There's almost a misconception of construction thinking, that it's slower to adapt. I find it to be quite the opposite. It's down to the tech vendors. That's my two cents on what's happening in the scene right now, if we all are wise enough to create products that are easy to implement, that are seamless to the people that we serve. 

And if we all remember that we're here to serve, and that the people that we do serve have built long before we came along and they will build long after we're gone, that puts things in perspective. And that creates better technologies that aim to add value to those hard-working men and women out there. So I see more and more of that.

How can contech companies help address big issues like the labor crisis?

Starting with the things like Versatile, measuring and understanding of processes, means you could start automating the sum parts of it, right? And automating correctly. So one person might be enough, whereas before you needed 10, right? It really depends on the different processes.

Also, attracting talent, I don't think we speak of attracting young talent enough. But if you want to attract young talent and make sure that you transition the knowledge as well, you better use technology. And I'm not in the business of building gadgets. We build real products that help real people in a very real industry. But there's also the attraction of using the best technology in the industry that will, you know, speak to the younger generation that you want to come into construction.  

Your vision incorporates automation and labor in unity. What do you think of visions of replacing laborers and employees with robots or complete automation in the future?

You cannot get rid of jobs. You can barely source the ones you have right now. There's nothing in technology that is meant to replace people — it's meant to empower them, it's meant to allow them to do more and then get home safely at the same time. Look at technology as the one big enabler that takes people that are good at what they do and makes them even better. 

If we can empower and enable people to just constantly be on their A-game and get rid of pretty much everything else, isn't this what technology has done in pretty much every other field? It didn't take jobs away. It transforms the jobs to allow people to do the things that they're excellent at, and dump the things that they don't necessarily need or want to do.

Dive Brief:

• The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has approved five non-Chinese-made drone models for government use. Although the DOD announcement doesn’t mean contractors should scramble to retailers for new drones, it does provide a roadmap for security in purchasing drones.
• The five approved drones are Skydio’s X2-D, Parrot’s Anafi USA, Altavian’s M440 Ion, Teal Drones’ Golden Eagle and Vantage Robotics’ Vesper. All the drones are also available for commercial use. 
• The 2020 National Defense Authorization Act prohibited the government from operating or buying Chinese drones. The makers of Skydio, Vantage, Altavian and Teal drones are based in the U.S. Parrot is based in France.

Dive Insight:

In May of 2019, the U.S Department of Homeland Security issued a concern about Chinese-made drones, saying sensitive, private flight data could be saved and sent to the Chinese government. At that point, the DHS advised consumers to be wary of purchasing Chinese-made drones, and to take precautions, such as removing secure digital cards and severing the drones’ internet connection.

The 2019 warning was not the first time Chinese-made drones raised national security concerns. In 2017, the U.S. Army banned the use of DJI drones, alleging that the firm transmitted critical infrastructure and law enforcement data collected through the devices to the Chinese government. 

In other drone news, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) last week granted Amazon Prime Air a special exemption certificate which will allow the company to begin using drones for delivery within a limited test range. The specification covers only the Amazon-manufactured MK27 drone, which the company says is capable of delivering up to 85% of its deliveries. If Amazon wants to deliver outside the agreed test area, it will need an amendment to the approval. UPS received similar permissions last year for deliveries to hospitals and medical facilities.

While the government begins rolling out drone usage protocols and corporations up their drone delivery games, the flying machines already are mainstream for construction pros.

“Drones have become the go-to tool for construction firms to track, map, survey, inspect and manage worksites more efficiently and safely,” Dan Burton, founder of DroneBase, a drone pilot network that provides support for construction companies, told Construction Dive. “Through aerial imagery and data, builders can map projects, report progress updates and gain insights through advanced analytics to make better, faster and more reliable decisions."

Dive Brief:

• The Federal Aviation Administration has granted its first approval for a company to operate automated drones without human operators on jobsites to American Robotics.
• The FAA approved American Robotics' Scout System, which includes acoustic Detect-and-Avoid technology that keeps the drone a safe distance from other aircraft. This allows the unmanned drones to operate safely  beyond the visual line of an operator's sight. 
• Prior to this approval, according to American Robotics, it was difficult for commercial drone operators to get the full value from their equipment and scale their drone operations because of the cost of hiring people to monitor the airspace and drone activity.

Dive Insight:

The FAA appears to be betting on the future of unmanned drones. Just a few days before the American Robotics announcement, the agency said it planned to issue almost $6 million in research, education and training grants to universities that are part of its Air Transportation Center of Excellence for Unmanned Aircraft Systems in order to pay for special projects not specifically related to the construction industry.

As for construction, automated, unmanned drones could help contractors and others exactly how they help them now — that is, accumulation of building information data, monitoring a job's progress and checking for potential safety hazards — but without the need of a certified pilot. This is likely to be most helpful with work that cover a large physical area, like miles of a highway project.

Last year, the FAA also gave a waiver to Hensel Phelps so that the general contractor could fly drones over people, an activity that is prohibited under general FAA drone rules. This means that Hensel Phelps and other construction firms cleared by the FAA can fly drones over active construction sites, although the contractor, at the time, said it would still try to avoid flying over areas where there are people.

Hensel Phelps secured the waiver using the ParaZero SafeAir Parachute System, but the FAA did not specifically approve that brand. The agency simply used it as an example of a scalable system that met its safety concerns.

Construction Dive’s new series, Tech 101, provides quick, top-line information about emerging construction technologies. Click here for the latest article in the series. What type of tools would you like a primer on? Email [email protected]. 

Drones provide construction teams with an overhead view of jobsites, materials, machinery and people. Contractors are using the autonomous flying machines to record images and videos that help optimize everything from grading plans and operations to identifying differences between as-designed and as-built site plans. Their usefulness can be enhanced with thermal cameras and other add-ons like mapping tools and GPS units. 

Also called unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), drones can be fully or partially autonomous but are usually controlled remotely by a human pilot on the ground.

“Drones have become the go-to tool for construction firms to track, map, survey, inspect, and manage worksites more efficiently and safely,” said Dan Burton, founder of DroneBase, a drone pilot network that provides support for construction companies. “Through aerial imagery and data, builders can map projects, report progress updates and gain insights through advanced analytics to make better, faster and more reliable decisions.”

Construction applications

Because UAVs provide a bird’s eye view of a jobsite, they offer builders a range of benefits that can’t be matched by any other technology, and the top applications in commercial construction are for logistics, progress monitoring, as-built surveying and marketing, said Dustin Williams, CEO and founder of FlywheelAEC, a reality capture service provider based in San Francisco. Among other projects, his company provides weekly drone flights over the Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium jobsite in Las Vegas (see video below).

Denver-based PCL Construction has utilized drones for more than three years on nearly all of its major projects to improve jobsite communication, perform volumetric analysis, overlay design documents with installed work for visual verification, verify grades and provide historical documentation. ​​

"The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words has never been more true," Bill Bennington, PCL's national quality manager, told Construction Dive.

New England contractor Windover Construction uses drones to establish a 3D model of jobsites, which managers import into the company’s BIM workflow. ​

​Drone provider Skycatch is recording all construction activity on Microsoft’s Redmond campus renovation project, feeding data into more than 100 models that contain almost 3 million 3D building components.​

For marketing purposes or for client updates, drones can capture detailed, close-up images that are not possible with a photographer on the ground or even in a helicopter, Burton told Construction Dive. “It’s also a much safer solution than taking pictures from a crane and more affordable than a helicopter flight,” he said.

UAVs are also useful tools for accident prevention, according to Drone Enthusiast. Overhead images showing erection sequences, crane locations or perimeter security can help pinpoint where projects get congested and even predict where hazards could pop up. The improved transparency and collaboration decreases inefficiencies that often lead to a reduction in change orders, Williams said.​

More drone-related advancements are on the horizon. Burton said that drones with thermal sensors and ground control points (GCPs) will gain more traction this year, enabling construction managers to identify problems like water leaks or concrete cracks more quickly.

Unpiloted UAV systems such as the University of Michigan’s autonomous system that nails shingles to a roof, are also upping drones' usefulness for construction pros.​

What you should know

Before implementing a drone program, it's important to select the right model for the job, starting with the choice of fixed-wing or rotary. With an airplane-like design, fixed-wing drones can glide on a set path and reach higher altitudes, making them efficient for mapping topography and surveying greater distances, according to Big Rentz. However, fixed drones are only able to fly forward.

For closer aerial inspections and photography, rotary drones are the better option since they are easy to control and their rotating blades allow them to hover and remain stable.

Contractors also need to know that despite the perceived low barrier to entry due to the affordable cost of consumer drones, many specialty technical skills are required, as well as professional-grade hardware and software, said Williams. There are dozens of apps that help control and program drones; a recent JBKnowledge report found that the top three apps were DJI Go, Drone Deploy and Pix4D.

“Having a drone program is becoming essential; but having it implemented internally is not practical for everyone,” Williams said. “If implementing internally, contractors should budget money and time appropriately to go from R&D through implementation.” 

That said, he added, many contractors would benefit from partnering with a specialized drone service subcontractor. These specialists can help decide the best products and approach for the specific project and ensure that local and federal regulations regarding the use of airspace are followed. They also have trained and FAA-licensed operators. 

A newly proposed identification system for commercial drones will help expand usage in the United States for everything from drone-delivered packages to emergency medical supplies. The FAA's Remote ID system, announced late last month, will require the vast majority of drones in the U.S. to broadcast tracking signals that will help authorities to identify their operators and locate them, according to a press statement.

“Remote ID technologies will enhance safety and security by allowing the FAA, law enforcement, and federal security agencies to identify drones flying in their jurisdiction,” Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said in the statement.

When the new regulations hit in a few years, according to the Washington Post, FAA compliance for drone operators will be more important than ever, Burton said. "Companies will need to make sure they have proper clearance, insurance and licenses before flying," he said.

Roadblocks 

Drone technology rapidly continues to evolve and bring new applications and benefits every month, but the quick pace of innovation can also be a drawback for contractors who are trying to keep up with the changes, Williams said.

A few other challenges include:

• Getting buy-in from construction company leaders. Because there are costs associated with starting a drone program, whether in-house or through a third party, some firms are reluctant to make the investment.
• Deciding whether to invest in hardware and training for an in-house pilot or soliciting a drone service provider. The choice between DIY or using a contractor comes down to how spread out the need is, Burton said. If firms are working on multiple sites across the country, a drone operations company can be helpful so companies don’t have to worry about buying hardware, getting insurance or training operators.​
• Finding a drone service provider that understands the needs of the AEC industry, such as how to coordinate flights around active construction such as cranes or how to integrate drone data into the BIM/VDC process. "While drones are invaluable tools on construction sites, like anything else, they need to be a cost-effective and scalable solution in order for the program to be successful," said Burton.  
• Ensuring secure transmission of data. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued an alert last year citing “strong concerns” that Chinese-made drones could be sending sensitive flight data to manufacturers and potentially to the Chinese government. The drones “contain components that can compromise your data and share your information on a server accessed beyond the company itself,” said DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency memo. DHS cautioned users to be wary of purchasing Chinese-made drones and to take precautions such as turning off a unit's internet connection and removing secure digital cards.