Drones (UAVs) in Façade and Structural Inspection of Buildings
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/21st September 2017, DRONE MARKET WATCHTM/ Drones (UAVs) can be utilized everywhere, from building façade inspection to monitoring a project’s construction phase and photographing and documenting the progress and end result. As a small aerial device, they possess a unique ability to operate lower than manned aircraft but higher than cranes and other ground-based vehicles. Utilizing multispectral sensors, they also capture data imperceptible to the human eye, benefiting everyone from the crew on the ground to the managers in the office.
Also, by uploading the data to the cloud, a wealth of new information and analytics allow geographically diverse project teams to monitor and assess building façade and structure conditions in real time, from anywhere. The potential benefits of drones (UAVs), have received a lot of attention as more and more applications have been identified. In addition to their continued use in for military applications, drones (UAVs) are emerging as a useful tool for everything from wind turbine inspection to oil and gas rigs inspection, etc. The obviously increased possibilities for drones (UAVs) have now extended to different types of buildings (residential, commercial, industrial, etc.), where they can be used to provide visual inspections of facades and other hard-to-access spaces. Management strategy of facility managers responsible for buildings maintenance relies on periodic visual inspection.
The potential benefits of drones (UAVs), have received a lot of attention as more and more applications have been identified
An enhanced amount of civil infrastructure buildings has become an issue with regard to their ageing process and hence life cycle management. Conventional means for monitoring the condition of those buildings is by man driven visual inspection only, possibly supported by some tap testing. This way of monitoring mainly provides integral information about cracking condition and possibly detachment of the covering layers of concrete or stone based structures. Effort required in providing this information can become laborious when considering structures of a dam, a cooling tower, a church or even a simple multistoried building since significant lifting equipment is required for inspection. A means to circumvent this effort is by using drones (UAVs) as an airborne sensor system to capture the required data. The potential applications for such unmanned aircraft in the non-destructive testing (NDT) focus on the tasks state detection, damage analysis and condition monitoring.
An enhanced amount of civil infrastructure buildings has become an issue with regard to their ageing process and hence life cycle management
The building inspectors need to know what to look for, the problem has to have symptoms that can be seen visually, and the inspections need to occur regularly. As a result, the idea of façade and structural inspections of buildings with a drone (UAV) is promising because they do not require capital investment, but produce some operational savings. The field of unmanned aircraft is categorized according to different classifications, lined up by size restrictions, weight limits or the respective area of operation (operating radius, flight duration). These common categories include aircraft and helicopters, as well as any other type of aircraft. Due to insurance-related claims, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles outside of registered (model) airfields in most countries is limited to a maximum takeoff weight of up to 25 kilograms.
Drones (UAVs) used for the building inspection shall not exceed the classification category of micro UAV which also has a weight limit of up to 5 kilograms
Accordingly, the drones (UAVs) used for the building inspection shall not exceed the classification category of micro UAV which also has a weight limit of up to 5 kilograms. Both in terms of requirements and goals for a selective damage detection and the high building density especially in urban areas, the choice is on VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) capable platforms. Due to this high building density and the associated traffic, the risks for personal injury and infrastructural damage has to be kept as low as possible. Consequently the redundancy factor of the sub-systems as well as of the complete system, thus the reliability of flight important functions, is of particular significance. Another major aspect is the request for stable hovering characteristics in order to ensure a planned and detailed damage inspection.
Read more information at: Drones in Building and Construction Inspection Global Market Outlook 2017÷2026
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