Construction Site Surveys

Building site surveys are important at each and every stage of the construction process. In the pre-construction stage, they are vital for gathering the information that informs the benefits and drawbacks of a particular site. During the construction process they can be used to measure progress and can also massively help in the resolution of disputes. Using drones speeds up this progress and helps to provide better and more up-to-date information.

Building site surveys can include surveys on existing buildings, including, valuing the buildings, measuring the buildings, demolition surveys and condition surveys (including structural reports). For sites without structures, the surveys can be used for ground condition surveys including topographical surveys. The benefit of using drones is the ability to quickly gather information about not only the specific site but the surrounding areas that is useful for constructing traffic and transport reports.

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Aggregate Stockpile Measurement by Drone Site Surveys

Stockpile Management

Stockpile management is critical to effective business operations in a range of sectors, with accurate calculation of on-site volume measurements being essential whether in the construction, mining, waste or aggregate industries.

Traditional methods of stockpile measurement, such as ground surveying with laser or lidar, can be not only expensive and time-consuming but also potentially dangerous and unsafe as require surveyors on the ground working in proximity to the pile.

Accurate Data Capture

Using aerial drone mapping, highly accurate data can be captured effectively and quickly, reducing cost, time and improving safety. This data, coupled with photogrammetry software such as Pix4D or DroneDeploy, can help calculate pile dimensions and data points captured by an aerial survey number in the millions, rather than the hundreds in a traditional survey, therefore giving highly accurate area and volumetric measurements.

While, relative accuracy is often suitable for some clients and situations, absolute accuracy, consistent with global geodetic co-ordinates, is required where the data is to be layered with other location data. Using Ground Control Points (GCP) and drones featuring Real Time Kinematic (RTK), accuracy can be improved and a Ground Sampling Distance of less than 1cm achieved.

Mavic Enterprise Advanced Thermal Drone
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Drones in the Pre-Construction Phase

Drone surveys can be beneficial to all stages of a construction project. Whether it be Pre-Construction, where our UAV’s can create Digital Terrain Maps (DTM’s) that can visually alert the project management team to any issues regarding the site. This type of survey can also highlight access and egress points, site storage areas, and safety areas to name but a few benefits. In fact, the bird’s eye view can allow any pre-construction professional to create accurate drawings that can identify challenges that may arise further down the line.

During the Construction Phase

Surveys during the construction process are important to help surveyors manage and maintain progress. Having more information at the various stages is important for helping to resolve potential disputes. Many clients receive frequent drone surveys and can compare progress at each interval. The frequent surveys allow the management team to communicate efficiently with both the client and the contractors. The level of detail in each of the surveys allows for any flaws to be detected. This work would have been previously done without drones and the finer details are much easier to miss without the technology.

The drone technology has the ability to monitor the entire site, the results from the survey can be integrated into BIM or any other relevant platform. The benefits of the surveys are wide-ranging, not only do drone surveys have the same benefits of traditional surveys the finer detail leads to even more uses of the data that is gathered.

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Post Construction Phase

Post Construction, UAV’s can be useful for marketing opportunities, the security of the site and if used consistently during the build, can help in resolving the dispute resolution phase.

Tracking Progress

Traditional methods of measuring construction site surveys progress, collating written and digital correspondence, meeting minutes, site diaries, various reports, drawings and updated drawings, variation instructions and photographs etc. can all be improved with the use of drones and 360 visuals. Once the person responsible collates all the information, usually into a Gantt chart and presents it to all interested stakeholders, whether they be construction professionals, client owners, interested parties, end users, in fact, whoever has an interest. Gantt charts or similar can be quite difficult to understand if you’re not used to reading them, with our footage we can give actual as-built footage at various stages of a build. All parties can relate to the visuals in a much more user-friendly clear and transparent way.
 
With our UAV external and 360 internal footage, we can give accurate representations of the progress at varying stages of the build process. This type of footage can also be useful in dispute resolution cases that may arise out of a construction project.
 
We can also, using our state of the art software and hardware, import our footage direct into BIM (Building Information Modelling) programs.