An APM webinar, held on 27 October 2020, presented by Tim Whitaker, Andy Huggett and Peter Brown
https://www.apm.org.uk/news/drones-in-project-management-webinar/
https://youtu.be/cZNVyG5aOrk
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Project Management
● Has clear goals and ‘success’ criteria
● Have communication challenges
- Internally
- Clients
- Data
● Has budgeting concerns
● Needs to consider the skills of team
members
● Has multiple accountabilities
- Project timeline
- Workforce
- Budget
- Risk management
● Is mindful of scope creep
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We’re going to talk about
Overview of Drone and Drone Tech
Surveys and Surveillance
Building Inspection & Digitalisation
LiDAR, Photogrammetry
Drones as a service’
Drone Training
Q&A
Note - we have been asked to focus this
presentation on the benefits of drones in
construction projects
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Aim:
Overview:
- Platforms
- Sensors
- Digital and photogrammetry
- Legal
- Air Navigation Order/EU Regs
- Privacy issues
- Benefits to Project Managers
- Risk Reduction
- Time Saving
- Record keeping
- Accountability
- Digital Twins
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Overview of Airborne
Drones and Drone
Tech
- Fixed Wing
- Rotary
Sensor carriers!
- Fixed wing : - endurance, payload
benefits. Good for Roads, rail and
pipelines, ISR.
Rotary Wing:- Quick to launch, complex
environments more control, hover.
VTOL -Benefits of Fixed wing with
convenience of Rotary-wing. Expense
and complexity.
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Overview of Airborne
Drones and Drone
Tech
- Fixed Wing
- Rotary
Sensor carriers!
- Fixed wing : - endurance, payload
benefits. Good for Roads, rail and
pipelines, ISR.
Rotary Wing:- Quick to launch, complex
environments more control, hover.
VTOL -Benefits of Fixed wing with
convenience of Rotary-wing. Expense
and complexity.
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Overview of Airborne
Drones and Drone
Tech
- Fixed Wing
- Rotary
Sensor carriers!
- Fixed wing : - endurance, payload
benefits. Good for Roads, rail and
pipelines, ISR.
Rotary Wing:- Quick to launch, complex
environments more control, hover.
VTOL -Benefits of Fixed wing with
convenience of Rotary-wing. Expense
and complexity.
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Type:
- Camera
- Optronics
- Laser Sensors
- Electro-Optical/Infrared
- Multispectral
Application:
- Mapping & Surveying
- Photography
- Monitoring
- Inspection
- Surveillance
Drone Payload Market
Industries:
- Construction
- Energy
- Media
- Oil & Gas
- Defence
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Where are we now?
● Technology has been the driving factor in the industry growth
● Unmanned Systems are now more affordable, accessible and
provide a vast array of options for payloads
● Regulations are being reviewed to allow for industry growth and
expansion
○ (EASA and ICAO key drivers)
● Cloud data processing vs local allows a variety of highly
affordable solutions
● Accuracy of data capture and data sets are improving
● Data captured has proven to be acceptable to meeting industry
standards
● Organisations currently fit into one of the 4 categories
A. Investigating viability of UAS use
B. Currently utilising contractors for UAS use
C. Developing or have adopted in house team
D. Not even considered use of drones
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What’s Possible?
● Weekly visibility of progress (scans -
timelapse)
● Single site visits could produce:
- Progress update for client
- Volumetric survey
- Digital content for Social Media
● Reduction of cost for *inspections by
30 to 40%
● Reduce haulage costs for
miscalculations of earth removal
● Use inspection footage to plan
preventative maintenance
● Environmental Impact Evaluation
*thermographic inspections of utility-scale solar farms
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How?
- Reliable, repeatable data
- Quicker processing vs
traditional methods
- High accuracy (1cm / pixel
resolution)
- Reduced risk
- Improved inefficiencies
- Cutting travel /
accommodation costs
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Theoretical Case Study - Airport Build:
An airport wants to extend its runway to the north. In order to do so they need to get over a number of hurdles;
Architectural planning, planning permission, and local objections to name a few
The site is 700,000m2
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Theoretical Case Study - Airport Build:
Ground Survey vs UAV use
Type of
Survey
Time to Survey Time for
Results
Accuracy / Resolution Repeatability Risk to operator Benefits
Ground 5 days + 1 day Accuracy high
Resolution low
Medium Unknown Known use
Understood
output
Aerial 2 days max 2 days Accuracy high
Resolution very high
(many more data points)
High Low Many uses -
3 model,
animations,
elevation heat
maps, shareable
output
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Surveys and Surveillance:
First off - What is a survey?
- Surveying is the precise science of determining the positions of, and the distances between, points in 2D and 3D
space.
Is an aerial survey more accurate?
- No, an RTK aircraft is typically 2 cm relative vertical and 1.2 cm relative horizontal accuracy. Through use of RTK
(Real Time Kinematics) or PPK (Post-Processing Kinematics) survey grade accuracy is achievable.
So what is the benefit?
- We can get the same level of accuracy but in a fraction of the time (20x times faster is common), plus we excel
at acquiring data from inaccessible locations (terrain, hostile conditions etc)
- We can precisely repeat a flight to recapture data from exact locations to monitor progress or change
- Wide area coverage possible - 400 hectares quite possible in one fixed wing flight
- Day/Night and some are even all weather
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Repeatable Updates:
- The aircraft can fly pre-defined ‘waypoint’ missions allowing missions to be flown repeatedly in exactly the same
places. This is ideal for stakeholder updates, progress monitoring etc. These repeated missions can be compiled
to ‘over time’ progression videos.
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Building Inspection & Digitalisation:
What is a ‘Digital Twin’?
A virtual representation of a physical asset. Can be used for asset
management, regular inspections for comparisons - techniques, progress
updates and maintenance.
Doesn’t have to be a building, can be an asset (chemical plant etc), or even
terrain for model planning.
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LiDAR & PhoDAR - Photogrammetric Survey:
Just a couple of useful tools.
Photogrammetry - The word “photogrammetry" is derived from the three Greek words phos or phot, meaning light;
gramma, which means letter or something drawn, and metrein, the noun of measure. So literally it means accurate
photography that can be used to take measurements.
Photogrammetric techniques allow us to produce survey accurate results for use in 3D modelling, terrain maps,
elevation and volumetric calculations to name but a few uses.
LiDAR uses LASER light pulses (150-300,000 per second typically) to build a highly accurate picture of the terrain and
environment.
Let’s look at LIDAR in action ...
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Drones as a Service: Pros & Cons
PROS
- Ease of scalability
- Lower upfront cost eg £80k for quality drones
- Less liability - Insurance cover, CAA legal, Standards
- Weather and environmental delays
CONS
- Potentially less flexibility - Availability
- Lower response time - Outsourced company gets team together, SoW defined and contracts issued.
- Rigid pricing structures -
If your UAV needs are more complex, and you don’t have the in-house competency necessary to achieve your goals,
then ‘Drone as a Service’ is the ideal choice.
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Creating Your Own UAS Program: Pros & Cons
PROS
- Maintaining full control of the operation
- Immediate response time
- Design the program to fit your organisation’s needs perfectly.
CONS
- Increased exposure to risk - Legal and Liability. Equipment redundancy
- Upfront and ongoing costs of maintenance & equipment replacement
- Potential lack of resilience, and you’ll need to stay up-to-date on all legal requirements and regulations.
If your need for technology is small in scale and complexity, but requires regular drone use, starting an in-house
program is good option.
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Operators are required to complete the following steps:
By law, anyone who is operating an aircraft in UK airspace - and that includes flying a drone - must hold the correct
qualifications to do so.
There are new regulations from 31st Dec 2020.
● All based on the risks the equipment and operation poses
● Levels of qualification based on size (weight) of aircraft and proximity to ‘uninvolved persons’
For more information speak to an RAE (a Recognised Authorising Entity)... such as us!
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How UAVs can help:
The ‘nutshell’ …
● Provide high quality remote sensing data - imagery, thermal, LiDAR etc faster and therefore reduced costs
● The aircraft can fly precisely allowing for ‘images over time’ to illustrate progress to both project managers and
other stakeholders, logistics, media, Environmental depts.
● The aircraft can fly in inhospitable areas - wide area survey (multiple hectares) and hostile environment (inside
Chernobyl or chemically contaminated area).
● New sensors coming online all the time - airborne methane detection, ground penetrating radar etc.
The future use of UAVs in the industry sector is almost a given, Goldman Sachs reported ‘Like the internet and GPS
before them, drones are evolving beyond their military origin to become powerful business tools. They’ve already made
the leap to the consumer market, and now they're being put to work in commercial and civil government applications
from firefighting to farming. That’s creating a market opportunity that's too large to ignore.’. They went on to predict that
in 2020 (pre-pandemic prediction) an $11,164mn “Total Addressable Market by Industry/Function” for drones.