Evaluating the Performance of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Safety Inspection

The potential use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAS) has come to the attention of the construction industry. However, its use still demands investigations for a better understanding of how this technology can be fitted to construction management tasks. This paper aims to evaluate the application of UAS for safety inspection on site, focus on its utility, equipment performance and risks associated with the use of that technology. For this, two case studies were performed in Brazil. Data was collected from flight tests on site for visual assets gathering and regular meetings with project personnel for feedback were held. The safety inspection analysis was based on the visualization of the safety requirements in the visual assets collected. Document analysis and interviews with project personnel and workers were performed for supporting the performance evaluation. As a result, the application of UAV could provide the visualization of 87.2% (Project A) and 58% (Project B) of the safety inspections items selected, providing detailed information for safety monitoring on jobsites. Barriers such as meteorological factors and pilot training influence the technology use for safety inspection. Further studies are under development in order to evaluate the impact of the safety inspection with the support of UAV in a systematic way.