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Quick Start Guide To Construction 180406
Quick Start Guide To Construction 180406
Quick Start Guide To Construction 180406
Opportunities Threats
• Worksite safety: Changes from the structure’s • Doing nothing: When every AEC business incorpo-
design—introduced during construction, or approved or rates drones into its processes and operations, the question
unapproved modifications that altered the original design— for leaders becomes how to differentiate their organization
can create safety risks. Drones provide a cost-effective way from competitors. A decision on this investment might be dif-
to perform assessments of objects that otherwise require ficult to justify solely based on ROI, because the immediate
ground crews and a human to perform risky climbs. In most impact on business outcome is not known. But inaction or
cases, a single pilot can easily fly around whatever it is that a delay in taking action might enable another company to
needs to be inspected and record a live feed of high-quali- position itself as the industry leader—an obviously unac-
ty video for engineers on the ground. ceptable result.
• Collaborative workflow: Use of drone data de- • Underqualified/illegal operators: Drone hobby-
mands that you set up new data integration workflows for ists and pop-up drone companies offering professional
your existing ecosystem of software solutions (e.g., CAD services for bottom dollar with no expertise or licensing in
and project management software) and learn how to the field can lead to disappointed one-time customers, who
manage daily project software workflows from constantly expect unreasonably low rates or don’t trust the quality and
changing sets of new images. Workflows need to focus on accuracy of the data after having had a bad experience.
how to both communicate and manage change—in the
feedback to design, in the feedback to production, or to • State and local regulations: Depending on where
both at the same time. you live, state or local regulations can hamper high-value
operations. Although the FAA’s UAS Integration Pilot Pro-
• Automation: We are beginning to see more soft- gram attempts to address this, we may end up seeing more
ware automation such as object recognition and artificial regulatory red tape—producing a patchwork quilt of rules
intelligence (AI). These algorithms are starting to be embed- that further restrict airspace and takeoff and landing points.
ded on drones to minimize the amount of human effort to
distill the vast amount of information and focus on action-
able inference.
Here is the information you’ll need to get started with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
commercial drone regulations, pilot certification, insurance, and more.
Regulations
Regulations for commercial drone pilots in the U.S. (aka Part 107) came into effect in August 2016. The rules outlined
by the FAA cover unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) flown for “routine non-hobbyist use.” You can check out the FAA’s
full summary of the Part 107 regulations, but here are the main points:
• Pilots must be at least 16 years old and hold a “remote pilot airman certificate” issued by the FAA.
• Commercial UAS operation must take place within visual line of sight (VLOS) of the operator.
• Operations are allowed only during daylight hours or within the hours of civil twilight (immediately
before sunrise and immediately after sunset).
• Must not exceed a maximum groundspeed of 100 mph or a maximum altitude of 400 feet.
• Air Traffic Control approval is required before flying in controlled airspace.
• Flight is not permitted directly over non-participating people.
• Drones weighing between 0.55 lbs. and 55 lbs. must be registered with the FAA.
Pilot certification
Drone operators must be certified, similar to a driver’s license written test. The test covers everything from aviation
weather, the national airspace system, and regulations, to aircraft loading, performance, and operations. Tests are
administered at FAA-approved Airmen Knowledge Testing Centers. Existing certified pilots (under Part 61 of the
Federal Aviation Regulations) may take an online training course available on FAASafety.gov to have a remote pilot
certification with a small UAS rating added to their existing pilot privileges. To maintain currency as a remote pilot
under Part 107, you will be required to take a knowledge test every two years.
Insurance
Though not required, it is highly recommended that you obtain drone hull and liability insurance. Hull insurance
covers damage to the drone itself. It’s generally separate from liability policies. Liability insurance covers damage
caused to a third party by your drone operations, including bodily injury and property damage. Most clients, espe-
cially larger businesses, require proof of liability insurance before letting a drone take off at their site. The average
drone service provider carries a $1M liability insurance policy.
Lessons Learned/
should encompass not only the drone aircraft’s airworthi-
ness, but also the following:
Cautionary Tales • Area and environment – hazards, weather, air
Find a Quick Win space restrictions, bystanders
• Mission plan – contingency planning for safe
One lesson learned by the early adopters is the value
exit routes in the event of a system failure,
drones provide managers of large construction sites. In
degraded performance, or lost communication
this example, project managers at an oil storage con-
link
struction site project complained that they couldn’t get
their oversight work done—meaning they did not have • Public awareness – notification to nearby prop
enough time in the day to properly oversee their many erty owners of your intentions (permissions)
construction projects. On a typical duty day, a project • Preflight/run-up – verification that all ancillary
manager visits various construction sites and verifies that equipment is operating to specifications
the workers have all required equipment, checks general
progress, and sees that things are generally being done • In-flight – proximity of other aircraft and pilot
such that the company can meet the minimum standards intentions to land
of tolerance set by law. It turns out that a simple data
Take small steps with BIM/drone
capture and quick 3D models were an invaluable re-
source for these projects. projects
BIM offers enormous gains in cost and time savings,
Be Clear About Customer Value much greater accuracy in estimation, and the avoidance
When drone business service providers talk publicly of errors, alterations, and rework due to information loss.
about the differentiation of drones, you’ll often hear But adopting BIM itself—outside of incorporating data
them say: “It’s all about the data.” But one of the lessons from drones—involves much more than simply changing
learned from the early adopters of drones in construction the software you use. To achieve all the benefits BIM
is that it isn’t just about the data. It’s about getting good offers, everyone in the architecture, engineering, and
information that provides value for the construction or construction industries will have to learn to work in fun-
architectural firm. So whether teams are collaborating damentally new ways. BIM-plus-drones is a whole new
around one daily map for a construction site as “the paradigm, so we recommend that you take small steps
single source of truth,” or providing floor-by-floor visual- when implementing a BIM/drone data project. Choose
ization views for a future building site, the ultimate goal is which steps are appropriate for your firm and tackle
to provide valuable information for downstream cus- them one at a time: Do a test run on a pilot project, see
tomers—and drones alone cannot do that. What drones how your firm does, and then use the pilot project to
can do is offer a much quicker way of capturing different prepare for wider BIM/drone data implementation.
types of data, digitizing it, and making it something you
can analyze immediately or over time to support con-
struction variance analysis.