Site Inspection using Unmanned Aerial Systems
Team Members Heading link
- Majd Masri
- Muntather Merei
- Adam Saadi
Advisors: Dr. Mohsen Issa; Edmund Burke
Project Description Heading link
An Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) is an application of using aircraft, such as drones, to do a site inspection in construction sites. The goal of using a UAS is to collect data, such as images, to analyze them and monitor ongoing operations for inspection purposes in construction sites. The benefits of using UASs are to minimize the need for a labor force, ensure the safety of the environment, minimize the amount of time to complete a task, and ensure the safety of people inside and outside construction sites. As shown in previous applications, the accuracy of data collection through UASs has developed in past years for use by contractors.
In this project, the team will use a drone to do a site inspection of land that could be used for future projects. Inspection includes surveying, topographic mapping, damage assessment, and 3D modeling to observe the land use. The drone that will be most useful to this project is DJI Phantom 3, and Drone Deploy software will be used to fly the drone. The drone will be used for taking pictures of the land. Then, data will be analyzed by using Pix4D mapper software to generate a 3D model.
According Stöcker et al. (2017), “Although UAVs have their origins in military contexts, they have also become valuable for scientific and commercial applications, particularly over the previous decade. Various stakeholders and actors, including governmental authorities, commercial operators, scientific institutions, and individuals, make use of UAVs as an affordable data acquisition tool: they enable mapping at temporal and spatial scales that still remain unachievable for traditional remote sensing platforms.” Our study indicates that those visual inspections of large sites were time-consuming and risky before using drones, but nowadays, drones are needed most in the industry because they are an important matter in construction sites. That is why engineers take the use of UASs seriously.