The introduction of drones to monitor construction sites in order to reduce risks

Abstract

The article substantiates the effectiveness of deploying unmanned aircraft systems for monitoring construction sites as a tool of proactive risk management, showing that a shift from episodic ground inspections to high-frequency aerial imaging and photogrammetry integrated with BIM reduces the incidence of hazardous conditions, accelerates response, and decreases direct project losses. The empirical base includes an in-situ quasi-experiment on 14 comparable residential construction projects(2022-2024), divided into control and experimental groups; at the experimental sites, regular multirotor flights with RGB/thermal imaging and LiDAR were employed, with processing in specialized software(orthomosaics at 1.5 cm/pixel, digital surface models, 3D point clouds) and reconciliation with schedule network models and BIM. Methods included comparative analysis, Student’s t-test(p0.05), correlation analysis, and the calculation of risk-oriented flight route maps to calibrate frequency and coverage zones. The results record a 44,56% reduction in the average number of occupational safety violations(from 14,72 to 8,16 per 10,000 person-hours), a decrease in the share of severe violations by 12,22 percentage points, and a reduction in remediation time from 5,82 to 2,15 hours; labor inputs for weekly monitoring and as-built surveying decreased by 82,48% and 80,46%, respectively, due to automation of flights and post-processing; the accuracy of volumetric measurements of bulk materials improved on average sevenfold(mean deviation 1,18% versus 8,34%). The composite economic effect(rework, schedule penalties, losses from inefficient consumption) amounted to savings of 43,49 thousand currency units per each 1 million currency units of budgeted cost, ensuring payback within a single construction season. The discussion underscores key drivers(spatio-temporal coverage, automated analytics, digital integration) and constraints (weather/regulatory barriers, cybersecurity, recognition quality in complex scenes), and offers practical implementation principles: risk-based flight planning, combining daylight and thermal imaging, data labeling standards, and integrating alerts into operational control loops. The conclusion confirms that unmanned aircraft systems form the foundation of a site’s digital twin and shift risk management into a predictive mode.