Drone Lidar have been disrupting various industries for years, but the construction industry has perhaps seen the greatest potential for drone technology. With its complex and lengthy process involving multiple phases and tasks, the construction industry has been ripe for disruption. Early adopters saw the potential for drones to streamline old processes, cut costs, and improve efficiency and safety. But there are still many untapped use cases for construction and engineering firms.

In this article, we’ll focus on how drone lidar can be used in the design, building, and delivery phases of a construction project.

Using Drone Lidar in Design & Engineering

Capturing land images with drones is just the beginning of the value they offer a construction firm. By feeding raw sensor data into software like Spatial Explorer and LidarMill , you can create value that can be packaged and sold under various pricing structures. Although these applications are powerful, they cannot fully replace surveying. By combining drone Lidar data and standard surveying tools, however, you can offer clients a wider range of services, such as the ability to measure cut and fill, or create a 3D rendering of the site and track the project’s progress.

Drones on the Construction Site

Drones have been readily embraced by the construction industry, and for good reason. They provide a safer and more cost-effective way to perform survey and as-is engineering models, as well as collect data and footage from the job site. Here are a few more use cases for drones on the construction site:

Job Site Documentation: By obtaining permits and proving safe processes, you can fly UAVs over job sites to cut down on waste.  This site documentation can be used with your customers and also your legal team if your project manager needs to show progress or the state of a project any time in its cycle.

Cut and Fill: With Earthwork, gradealls, and GPS precision, having a highly accurate model to do precision earth work is critical  A Drone lidar can map 40 acres in less that 30 minutes and deliver a 3 to 5 cm accurate surface in less than 2 hours.  For large area projects this can be a huge savings.

Some of the best lidar for on site are