Every year, more and more construction companies are implementing drones in their workflows. In fact, among all commercial industries using drones, construction is the fastest-growing adopter. And it’s easy to see why.
Drones help in the preplanning phase with mapping and land surveying, during the construction phase with earthwork reporting and safety inspections, during the post-construction phase with aerial photography marketing, and more!
Any construction site can benefit from the increased efficiency and cost-savings that drones offer. But before you launch one onsite, you must consider these important factors:
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1. Aviation Liability Insurance
Despite all the benefits, flying drones on a construction site comes with risks. There’s always the slight chance that a drone could crash into another property, piece of equipment, or even a person.
To protect against potential property damage, injuries, or other legal issues, you need to invest in aviation liability insurance. It’s not required by law, but it’s a very good idea—especially in construction where there are many potential liabilities.
Most drone liability insurance policies start at $500,000 and go up from there. You can pay for them in annual, monthly, daily, or even hourly increments. But the more you pay upfront, the lower your rate tends to be overall.
Carefully compare different insurance policies until you find one that has the coverage you need at a price you are comfortable with. But as a rule, you should verify that all insurance minimums are met and signed off by your employer.
2. Who Will be Flying the Drone?
You also need to consider who will be flying the drone. Although it may appear simple, this cannot be done by a random intern from the tech department. It needs to be an experienced commercial drone pilot licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Getting a commercial FAA drone license requires being at least 16 years old, registering your drone, passing a knowledge test, and abiding by all FAA Part 107 commercial flying rules. Such rules include flying within visual line of sight (VLOS) of the drone at all times, yielding to nearby aircraft, flying at or below 400 feet, and more. Your drone operator should be intimately familiar with all these rules.
“Drone operators should avoid flying near airports because it is difficult for manned aircraft to see and avoid a drone while flying. Remember that drone operators must avoid manned aircraft and are responsible for any safety hazard their drone creates in an airport environment.”
- Federal Aviation Administration
And if they don’t already, any drone pilot working on site should have their OSHA construction certification, which certifies that they know how to safely navigate and work at a construction site. Assuming your drone pilot is FAA and OSHA certified and has ample flight experience, you can trust the drone mission will go safely and smoothly.
What's included in YOUR GUIDE...
A Proven Roadmap of Success for Implementing Drones in Construction.
A List of Red Flags to Avoid When Hiring Drone Service Providers.
How to Persuade Your Leadership Team to Leverage Drones on Every Jobsite.
3. Receiving Approval for Flight
Anytime you put a drone in the air, you first need to check that you have proper authorization to fly. That could mean getting approval from the FAA, local authorities, nearby property owners, upper management, or all of the above.
As far as FAA flight authorization goes, there are three different types of airspace with different flight authorization rules you need to be aware of:
- Uncontrolled airspace allows you to fly a drone without preflight authorization so long as there are no nearby aircraft in sight.
- Controlled airspace requires you to request LAANC approval before each flight. LAANC stands for Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability and can be obtained within minutes on a LAANC app.
- Restricted airspace requires you to get a special drone flying waiver from a governing authority, usually a nearby government or military institution.
You’ll also want to check for any state or local flight restrictions before launch. Local restrictions will vary, so you just need to verify what drone laws exist at the location of the construction site.
As for private property, it’s best to notify nearby businesses and residents that drone operations will be taking place in their vicinity. For example, many school districts these days have banned the use of drones within their property. And some residents may call the police if they’re under the impression that a hovering drone could be spying on them. So you may need to get their approval as well before launching a drone.
4. Creating a Drone Safety Management System
Risk management and safety are the highest priority in the construction industry, so you need to adopt drones into these existing safety processes.
A good construction safety management system (SMS) will have policies in place for proper onsite safety procedures. When it comes to drones, for example, your SMS could include rules against other workers distracting the drone operator during flight and procedures for scheduling future drone missions.
Your drone SMS should also address risk management. This includes identifying potential hazards by going through preflight checklists before each flight and reducing the risks to an acceptable level. This could mean postponing flights due to bad weather, keeping batteries charged, and inspecting and calibrating the drone before each flight.
Finally, you want your drone SMS to include processes for continual reevaluation and frequent reporting. That way, you’re more likely to catch safety risks early on and you’re transparent about them with management, workers, clients, and investors.
Coming up with a drone SMS like this will take some work, but it’s well worth it. Without one, you risk incurring damage to property and equipment and exposing workers to unsafe working conditions.
Related Article – 6 Mistakes to Avoid When Using Drones for Construction
5. Know Your Operating Environment
Every aircraft pilot needs to be aware of their operating environment. It’s basic flying protocol. And for drones, it’s no different.
So here are some questions to ask before launch:
- How busy is the construction site? Meaning how busy is construction traffic and what are crewmembers in your vicinity doing?
- Is there a lot of radio frequency (RF) interference that could cause signal loss between the remote and the unmanned aircraft system (UAS)?
- Could nearby structures block the GPS signal of the UAS?
- Is there a lot of pedestrian and vehicle traffic that could be harmed in the event of an accident?
- Could sudden wind tunnels from nearby buildings force the UAS to crash?
- Are there any nearby businesses or people whose privacy might be violated by an aerial drone flight?
Allow the answer to each of these questions to determine whether or not it’s appropriate to fly a drone and how the operating environment might be improved.
For example, if you are photographing an active highrise construction building within a busy city, the WIFI from nearby buildings could interfere with the drone’s video feed. In that case, you may need to opt for a drone with a stronger transmission signal.
Or if there are tall cranes onsite, you’ll want to know how high they are to stay clear of them while flying. Whatever you do, stay acutely aware of your surroundings so you can avoid errors that could lead to a dangerous and costly drone crash.
6. Necessary Equipment to Complete the Job
You’ll also want to establish what type of drone data you are looking to get before launch. Do you need orthomosaic maps, 3D point cloud models, or just simple aerial photos?
The needed deliverables will determine what drone equipment is required to complete the job. As far as drone types go, you can get a fixed-wing aircraft or multi-rotor drones with 4, 6, or even 8 propellers! 4-propeller drones (aka quadcopters) are most common and will probably do the job. But if you want more stability and redundancy in case of a motor failure, you might go for a hexacopter instead.
Then you need to decide on what payload the drone should carry. Depending on the type of data you want to capture, this could be a:
- High-quality RGB camera for regular visual images and video
- Infrared (IR) sensor for thermal images like heat maps
- LIDAR laser for generating 3D point clouds and models
- Zoom camera for detailed inspections
You’ll also want extra drone batteries to swap out with the first set when they die (in addition to a battery charger). That way, you reduce downtime and get the job done faster. And the drone operator will need proper personal protective equipment (PPE), including a helmet and reflective vest for whenever they are onsite.
Knowing beforehand what kind of equipment you need to complete the job will help avoid delays and keep everything on schedule.
7. Distributing the Captured Data
How will you distribute the captured drone data? This is an important question to ask before a drone flight as you have several options.
If you only need raw visual footage to quickly inspect the construction site and show its progress, you could livestream an aerial video to managers and asset holders. That way, they get a real-time view of what’s going on without needing to travel onsite.
If you’re generating more complex deliverables like orthomosaics, you’ll need to process the drone data first with advanced drone software. Once it’s processed, you can upload the data to the cloud for easy sharing among stakeholders—managers, workers, investors, and clients. Or you can save the processed drone data to a thumb drive and share it with people individually.
However you decide to distribute the drone data, make sure to clearly communicate what the turn-around time will be.
Adopting Drones into Your Construction Workflow
If this is your first time adopting drones in a construction project, you’re off to a good start. By following the guidelines above, you’ll avoid many in-house drone program mistakes.
But if you’d rather play it safe, consider partnering with a professional drone contractor. Here at The Drone Life, we can help you with all of your construction drone needs—during preplanning, construction, and post-construction.
Whether you need land surveys, maps, marketing material, or all of the above, we can provide it with a fast turn-around time. So don’t hesitate to contact us today to schedule a free consultation with one of our drone experts.
What's included in YOUR GUIDE...
A Proven Roadmap of Success for Implementing Drones in Construction.
A List of Red Flags to Avoid When Hiring Drone Service Providers.
How to Persuade Your Leadership Team to Leverage Drones on Every Jobsite.
