Drones will be used first in 215 business districts, with continued expansion in the future

Drones are expected to be used in earnest in land and housing-related work.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) have come up with various drone utilization plans for each stage of construction, including surveys, design, and construction management, in 215 business districts. The new drone market created as a result is expected to reach 25 billion won per year.

Meanwhile, LH has verified the use of drones in all major business areas from planning to facility maintenance through related services and pilot operations, and plans to prioritize the use of drones in 12 tasks in 5 areas※.

In the planning stage, drones can be used for on-site surveys to acquire and compensate for land needed for project implementation. In addition, drone footage is used for determining new business districts and surveying candidate sites for setting business district boundaries.

In the case of land compensation, the method of taking aerial photographs one-time and using them in the early stages of the project and conducting on-site surveys is being replaced with a method of overlapping and comparing drone images obtained periodically with cadastral maps and topographic maps.

Especially for a certain period ('16. 2.~'16. 8.) As a result of pilot operation in compensation work for residential areas, national industrial complexes, etc., it was possible to easily conduct rough terrain surveys that were difficult to conduct on-site surveys, and it was also possible to use it as reliable public information for residents. When surveying candidate sites, the surrounding natural environment, elevation, slope, land use status, etc. are identified through drone images to determine the business area.

In the design stage, drones can be used for design and civil engineering BIM* construction work, such as constructing the shape and property information of the facility as 3D information identical to reality and producing digital topographic drawings suitable for public surveying. Using data captured by drones, a 3D topographic model can be created, and cross-section drawings and work volume calculations can be made through surveying programs.

Even when implementing civil engineering BIM, construction site construction management and measurement using various surveying devices that depend on manpower can be replaced by utilizing a 3D model DB based on high-resolution images.

Drones can be used effectively for tasks such as understanding the progress of construction at construction sites, process management, and safety inspections. In the case of complex construction, video data can be built for each work process to compare and analyze terrain characteristics, and construction management can also be done by overlapping various design drawings such as underground facilities, pipelines, manholes, structures, surveys, and pavements. In housing construction such as apartments, rotary-wing drones can be used to obtain images from various angles in difficult and dangerous sites, and this can be used to investigate the exterior and determine the extent of damage such as cracks and breaks.

In addition, drones are used to improve accuracy in periodic and regular inspections conducted on site, and are also used when establishing emergency recovery plans due to construction disasters such as ground collapse, rockfall, soil leaching, and structural damage.

In particular, safety inspections were mainly conducted through visual inspections, so there were limitations on high-rise exterior walls, but by using a drone's high-precision RGB image or thermal image acquisition sensor to take close-up shots, cracks can be identified and three-dimensional image analysis techniques can be used. It can detect damaged areas within the facility.

In order to process, process, and utilize various space and construction information acquired by drones, LH is establishing the world's first one-stop operation system. Through this system, all drones flying within LH business districts nationwide must receive prior approval, and will fly through ground control equipment (navigation, path tracking, smartphone view, etc.) installed on site under central control.

The images acquired at the site (business headquarters) are transmitted in real time to the central control room, and the central control room converts the received images into GIS information. The converted information is retransmitted to the site and stored in the big data server (city platform). In addition, a maintenance management system for parts and consumables is established, enabling immediate response in case of aircraft loss or malfunction due to a crash, etc.

An official from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said, “We expect that transparency in the construction process will be secured through smart construction management, and we expect this case to become a leading example and spread to other public institutions and the private construction industry.”

Professor Lee Seok-bae of Gyeongnam National University of Science and Technology, who conducted research on the usability of drones, added, “In addition to the direct effects of LH’s introduction of drones, such as increased work efficiency, we expect to see the prevention of safety accidents at dangerous construction sites and the creation of jobs due to the demand for technical personnel.”