
Drones Enter Construction - prostoalex
https://www.engineering.com/BIM/ArticleID/16686/Are-Drones-Becoming-Essential-to-Construction.aspx
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wink
My experience is a bit dated, but in Germany construction seemed to be the
most change-adverse field of work imaginable (and everything digital is
already lagging behind compared to other countries). Even getting some of the
bigger companies to use Excel over paper was a huge productivity win. So I'm
not holding my breath and seeing anything fancy anytime soon :P

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jaclaz
It seems to me more like a "fun thing to do" than anything that will be
generalized.

I mean, it may well replace some existing technologies, like
aerophotogrammetry and - more generally - produce via aerial survey _more_
data, useful for designing, but it's not like in every construction project
photogrammetry and/or aerial survey is actually needed or useful.

Surely there will be some niche where it may replace other surveying methods
(where precision is not-so-vital) as an example I would see it as a very good
approach to (large) mining and excavation works to create provisional progress
reports, but I doubt its use can be extended to more that a few particular
projects.

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Fnoord
> It seems to me more like a "fun thing to do" than anything that will be
> generalized.

That's your lack of imagination speaking. Heck, before you posted this comment
someone already posted a practical example [1].

Personally, I'd look at robots (including drones) taking over manual labour
and risky labour. An example would be cleaning windows on a skyscraper, or
delving in mines. But we could also look for applications in nature. How about
pollination, for example? (That example also fits the manual labour definition
albeit for animals.)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16733277](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16733277)

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jaclaz
>That's your lack of imagination speaking.

More probably it is more my roughly 35 years experience on building sites and
construction projects speaking (as someone noted before the construction field
is usually rather "conservative").

I surely would like more robots making more useful (and risky for humans)
things, simply, specifically, there are not many construction site that _need_
aerial survey at all.

The example posted you referred to is not in the construction field, but
rather in the utilities maintenance and has nothing to do with the original
article that is about "accurate" aerial survey via drones:

>In construction, the technology is particularly valuable for uses such as
monitoring site progress and tracking material quantities.

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aaron695
Watch a giant industrial drone de-ice a huge wind turbine

[https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2018/3/26/17163464/drone-de-
ic...](https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2018/3/26/17163464/drone-de-ice-clean-
wind-turbine-aerones)

"The craft has a tether line supplying water, which it sprays at up to 100
liters a minute (with optional de-icing coating), and another for power,
meaning it can stay aloft indefinitely."

