UAV-Based High-Rise Buildings Earthwork Monitoring—A Case Study

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is one of the most prominent technologies in the construction industry for data collection purposes. Compared with traditional methods, UAVs collect data faster and more efficiently at a lower cost. One of the construction works that can be monitored using UAV is earthwork. Earthwork monitoring is essential to complete the earthwork on time, according to plan, and within budget. This paper presents an application study on the UAV-based earthwork monitoring of a high-rise building project in the Republic of Korea. Earthwork of building projects have distinct characteristics. The area is excavated downwards to tens of meters deep, thus contractors deal with several types of soil. The building project is usually built in a densely built area. Therefore, contractors must monitor the slope as it poses landslide risk to surrounding areas. UAV can calculate the excavated volume, monitor the progress and the site, and document earthwork periodically and strategically. Based on case study, this study compared estimated volume based on GPS and actual excavated volume based on UAV survey and found 0.71% difference, indicating the reliability of surveying using UAV. However, the volume per soil type was quite different between both methods, resulting in 15.8% (USD 183,057) cost difference. This study shows that UAV technology is effective in monitoring the actual excavated volume, thus supporting fair business practices and transparency between stakeholders.

Analysis of Storage Capacity Change and Dam Failure Risk for Tailings Ponds Using WebGIS-Based UAV 3D Image

“…Based on UAVOP, it is possible to obtain the ground geographic information of the whole tailings pond, so that the storage capacity change data of the tailings pond can be obtained in a more comprehensive and convenient way. Meanwhile, the reliability of the volume measurement based on UAV 3D images has also been confirmed in related research [18,25,27,33,54,55]. In addition, the WebGIS UAV 3D images can be more conveniently and easily shared with users to improve user-friendliness.…”

“…Volume measurement based on UAV 3D images typically exhibited a relative erro level within 10% [18,25,27,33,54,55], which indicated that the measurement technique us ing UAV 3D images was sufficiently reliable and could be effectively employed for volum estimation purposes. The WebGIS volume measurement function was utilized on tw phases of 3D images of the tailings pond to measure and analyze the changes in storag capacity during different aerial photography periods, as illustrated in Figure 4.…”