Risk Considerations in the Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in the Construction Industry

DOI

10.2991/jrarc.2016.6.4.1How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Construction, Drone, Management, Risk, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS)

Abstract

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the construction industry is swiftly growing worldwide. UAVs are changing the way construction companies do business. Contractors are increasingly using camera-mounted UAVs to monitor the full range of activities. Rapid advances in camera, sensing, aeronautics, battery and autopilot navigation technologies have helped make UAVs affordable, reliable and easy to operate. The US Federal Aviation Administration predicts that UAVs hold tremendous promise and commercial drone sales could increase from 600,000 to 2.7 million over the next four years. On the one hand, UAVs are extremely cost-effective in conducting aerial surveys, worksite surveillance, real-time inspections, and monitoring jobsite safety. On the other hand, with UAV ownership rapidly rising, the number of reported UAV safety, risk, and liability incidents is increasing. With this new technology use in the construction industry, construction companies must be aware of all regulations, legislations, privacy liability, and risks for construction related businesses. Operating a drone or hiring a subcontractor to operate it is not something to do on the spur of the moment. Emphasis and effort should be placed on safety, risk control, training and education. The goal of this paper is to provide construction professionals with timely and pertinent information on UAV use with a focus on risk management based on current industry practice, experience and literature review.

Copyright

© 2017, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - JOUR
AU  - George Wang
AU  - Donna Hollar
AU  - Susan Sayger
AU  - Zhen Zhu
AU  - John Buckeridge
AU  - Jie Li
AU  - Jimmy Chong
AU  - Colin Duffield
AU  - Dongryeol Ryu
AU  - Wei Hu
PY  - 2016
DA  - 2016/12/30
TI  - Risk Considerations in the Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in the Construction Industry
JO  - Journal of Risk Analysis and Crisis Response
SP  - 165
EP  - 177
VL  - 6
IS  - 4
SN  - 2210-8505
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/jrarc.2016.6.4.1
DO  - 10.2991/jrarc.2016.6.4.1
ID  - Wang2016
ER  -