# Getting up to Speed: Improving Construction Management with Drones

- Event: NestGen ’22
- Published: March 4, 2022
- Length: 59:41
- Watch: https://nestgen.org/library/watch/v2eJKco4iM8/

> The transcript of a recorded NestGen session, for reading or for use with an AI tool. It comes from the video's
> captions; automatic captions can mishear names and terms.

## About this session

Learn how autonomous drones are being deployed for monitoring progress of construction projects at a commercial level.

## Transcript

**[0:12]** hello hello everyone welcome to another fascinating session of nesgen 22 we are all very excited to learn about the different applications that will see the fastest adoption of drone autonomy and as they are all aware construction management is one such application where project managers need to constantly monitor the progress keep a track on expensive machinery and materials and prevent the project from falling behind schedule to shed more light on the challenges that construction program managers and engineers face and tips on how to overcome them especially with the use of automated drone docking stations we have with us andrew andrew is the program manager and senior coastal engineer with 15 years of experience in designing and implementing a variety of coastal restoration shoreline protections sediment management navigation waterfront structure and flood mitigation projects along the atlantic gulf uh pacific and arctic oceans

**[1:16]** he has been responsible for managing broad-based coastal engineering projects including marketing and sales product design permitting bid and construction document preparation client contract team coordination among others from a technical point of view andrew is well versed in coastal modeling geophysical surveys construction oversight and oceanographic studies phew I think even before andrew delivers his session his bio is a testament of why he's in the best place to do so andrew with this the stage is all yours well thank you for the warm introduction there by zoe I really appreciate it um I I wish I would have been able to see more of the conference here uh with everybody's presentations that I'm going on uh the the conference started at a unique time for me started at about 11 o'clock at night last night and at 5 30 5 45 in the morning so I know that this is a global conference which makes it really exciting and uh look forward to hearing some questions and um you know learning from more of you and

**[2:21]** also introducing some concepts that uh that may help improve uh drone automation in the industry in general so this is uh the session topic as byzantine mentioned is uh getting up to speed and improving construction project management with automated drones um I didn't really prepare an outline but I'm going to start off by providing a little bit of a background about who who the company is that I work for who our clients are and the types of projects that we work on just so you can understand uh why we're using the drone technology to support our project and then go in with the descriptions of the technology that we're using and include conclude the presentation with a case study and then uh kind of follow up with some um with some final thoughts on uh where we see this going and possibly where we could get some help from the drone automation industry in general to improve products for

**[3:21]** the construction industry uh I'm with aptom we we're headquartered in baton rouge louisiana have over six thousand employees generate over a billion dollars in that revenue and have office locations over the world we're primarily based in the united states but we have we do have some offices uh in other locations um we're really committed to clean energy and changing the world that's real really what it comes down to it is we're trying to use technology to make the world a better place to live in and uh technology is key for coming up with good solutions and you know achieving that um our mission statement is delivering extraordinary results by merging inspired innovation within the powered workforce and uh inspired innovation is really what I call this drone technology the automation and being able to not only does it provide us additional information about what's going on but it also

**[4:22]** frees up some of our valuable time to take on more complex tasks that are going on during a construction project uh one of our uh we commit to moving forward with this collaborative way we really feel the collaboration is key to achieving a good solution and with that we have our various commitments that we have this is how everybody's taught when we uh when we start working at the company and this really carries through with the teammates that we work with we've worked with FlytNow hextronics couple other industry partners that are probably here at the event and collaboration is key to coming up with solutions that that work and stand the test of time so I just wanted to make sure that I mentioned that it's not just at them but it's also our partners that that really are key players to um to the solutions that we bring to the table um because of this the collaboration we've actually we're relatively new company I

**[5:24]** think we've only been around for six years but we're quickly rising to the top and the industry rankings which is highlighted by this slide we serve different customers commercial and industrial everything from food and beverage and then government uh with state federal local municipalities and also the oil and gas industry uh so we're really our goal is working to make our natural world more resilient and the built environment more sustainable and reliable that's really what our goal is in in a nutshell the core services that we provide this is just kind of shows a breadth of the services and it expands everything from program management resilience to critical infrastructure and data solutions with mapping and everything like that but what I'm going to dive into with this presentation is really the our coastal engineering services uh we we focus highly on coastal restoration and that's where

**[6:27]** I've really seen the benefit of this technology uh for improving our capabilities and also the solutions that our clients are offered our coastal services we really focus on coastal restoration which includes beach nourishment marsh restoration and in those environments there's a lot of things that are changing on a daily basis and when going out to construction as you can see up here in this image there's a lot going on and it's a lot to keep track of during the course of the construction project uh we're also looking at natural resources mapping hard bottom looking at turbidity during construction so drones and having the aerial picture really gives give us a better understanding and helps to oh helps to make sure that we're not impacting any of the the natural resources that they be near a construction project

**[7:28]** with our coastal uh coastal department we have a couple of key service areas um one of them is the coastal and marine geology group and we've been using uh drones to support that uh our missions for quite a while right now uh and really some of the things that we're doing is uh looking for sand uh we're searching for santa place on beaches and we're looking at seafloor mapping and beach mapping and as you guys all know drones have the capability of of really mapping uh providing a quick way to map beaches uh in other environments uh we're able to extract elevations from the drone data uh create create maps and um and understand what sort of environment we're working in uh this includes as you see here in some of these pictures uh we're doing geophysical surveys where we're mapping the ocean floor and this also extends the subaerial regions

**[8:30]** you have a boat here that's just collecting sediment cores another part is our geomatics and this is really probably the heart and soul of where drones come in and this is uh where we're collecting data on beaches but we've gone it another step further if I can get this I don't know why it's not there we go um we're also using drones to deploy sensors um to right here you have a magnetometer where it's uh measuring the magnetic field to determine if there's any um any materials that are down below which would be detrimental to digging sand or extracting materials from the ocean so right now I'm not aware of any docking stations that uh would be able to house some of these capabilities but just like to highlight some of the use cases that we have um to hopefully open the minds of some of you that are involved with developing

**[9:35]** these uh these tools um so that this type of equipment and different payloads could possibly be implemented into the docking stations and in other autonomous type services uh because a lot of these missions they take time and there's a lot of down time when we're collecting data where you just have to sit down and and wait and the more automated that these systems get um again like I say it allows us to take our task off of our minds off of the task of collecting the data and focus our efforts into analyzing the data and providing the results that our clients are looking for so automation is key to a lot of the processes that we go through coastal engineering this is the other side of what we're what we're doing and a lot of this comes down to uh our bread and butter is building beaches and restoring uh coastal ecosystems um and as you can see here when these uh when these beaches are being uh constructed it's it's a large area to cover uh there's generally a lot going on you have heavy

**[10:39]** equipment that's moving around moving sand into different different locations uh the sand is actually coming out of these pipelines to to build the beach alongshore and uh one of the key components is there's uh there's a really a limitation on the volume of sand that's available for these beaches so to construct beaches so it's it's critical that we maintain an accurate um that we accurately track where the sand is being placed how much is being filled into the template whether the templates being overfilled because when you start the project you have enough sand in the borrow area to finish the whole project but if but if you place too much sand in one particular area you could get to the end and not have enough material to finish off what uh what was the original intent so maintaining an accurate um uh an accurate estimate of the quantity of material that's been placed whether it's remaining in the template is is key to the end of a successful project and that's where these uh drone and schroeder box and drone

**[11:39]** autonomy uh comes into play it's having the ability to have these systems go out and take surveys um so that we're maintaining an accurate assessment of what's being placed um the other the other part that's been um I'll get into it more later on but another part that's been a new development is uh in addition to the same quantity that's being placed another important is the quality and uh one of the things that has been oh there's been some technology that's been making it possible but during these projects we actually go out and we have somebody out in the in the field collecting samples of sand every day where you're going out there and uh talking about going out uh taking a sample of sand putting it in a plastic bag and then after you know every five bags of sand or something like that is is taken to the

**[12:41]** office in sieve to determine what the grain size is the color the sorting to make sure that it matches the properties of the uh the sand that was specked for the project and with um with image processing software nowadays and the resolution of the cameras there are on board of these uh drone systems uh we're actually seeing that it may be possible at some time in the near future to get an accurate assessment of what the grain size distribution is on the beach sand using image processing through taking pictures from the drone and having those pictures be analyzed for grade size it may be a little bit of a stretch we're using some of that technology to map larger stone in the coastal area when we're placing it to construct coastal structures but that's I mean right now this is a conference talking about the future of technology and that's really where I see this going um so with that being said you know that would further having the ability to uh use automated drone systems road in

**[13:46]** the box technology that would further reduce our requirement to have people on the beach uh all day long during the course of construction which really saves our client money and provides more data to make sure that these projects get constructed as intended um again this is just kind of a slide showing the the various types of projects that are that are dying where we can use this drone technology uh we have projects everywhere from up here in the the top left that was actually done in arctic circle where we were testing some uh the feasibility of dredging sediments in the winter by cutting through ice um and one of the things that you know drones could be used is just by maintaining a there's probably different ways where you can again use the technology to uh one of the important parts of those operations is making sure that the ice that the snow is

**[14:47]** not on the ice because when that is when the snow is on the ice that it's it's insulated and it's not able to uh to to it's not as strong it doesn't hold the uh construction equipment as much so an important part of it is to make sure that the ice roommates uh that it's free of snow and uh using um automated systems could be a way of you know adding another level of of safety to those operations by going out and making sure doing some mapping to make sure that the the areas are free of snow so that the ice is able to remain thick and solid um again this one this image over here this is a a marsh restoration project that that we did down in southern louisiana has some of the highest land loss rates in the world and we're actually going out there and rebuilding uh the marshes and the barrier islands um to to essentially help reduce

**[15:47]** those land loss rates and a big part of this is right here you can see this is a bucket dredge and it's actually picking up sediment and you don't see a photo of it right right here so much um but but I have another slide that shows it but it's building up uh we call it a primary dike it's just along the edge of the vegetation line and what that is is it's a it's an earthen structure to essentially create individual cells to confine the area so that so that muds and sands can be pumped into the area to build up the elevation and one of the key components of this is you can see here from the picture that this is really sloppy material and it's being used to build a a a berm and um what what happens is when when these earthen structures are constructed

**[16:47]** uh they're originally you know they achieve a certain elevation uh but with the consolidation uh the and the subsidence uh that the materials uh consolidate as they're being placed so they're starting to compact and then the underlying sediments they're uh it's also an area where they're uh where they're settling um there's under underlying settlement going on so the whole system is starting to to sink under its own self self-weight and one of the key components of these projects is making sure that that primary dike remains remains in place while while they're placing so behind it and having an automated process of using drones to actually go out and map the area make sure that those elevations are maintained during the course of construction is is a key component it's not only does it help ensure the successful completion of construction but it's also

**[17:49]** a safety issue uh because these uh when when these features are constructed it's it's like quicksand um I never really as a kid you always see videos of you know people thinking it's quicksand you never quite know if it's real or not but I will tell you quicksand is a real thing and it's not fun to be stuck in um and that's one of the things where if we have the ability to map and survey these areas without placing uh personnel on top of them to to do the surveys using using traditional matchup methods it just adds another level level of safety uh another type of project that we're using this technology on the automated systems is uh with beach restoration I was talking about that before this is another picture of it with the sand coming out uh coming out from it's being pumped offshore from this dredge that you can see out in the distance and uh comes out onto the beach and again it's a similar type system where you have a bulldozer

**[18:52]** here that's constructing a dike along the water line so that the sediment doesn't go directly out to the ocean create a a sediment plume or turbidity clean plume so the drones can make sure that these secondary dikes are maintained during the course of construction and also like I said before tracking the stove the volume of soil that's being placed uh so and that the temple is being filled appropriately um here we go into natural resources we do a lot of project permitting uh biological monitoring habitat characterization ventricular resource mapping and um again we use some drones and aerial photographs for some of the some of these applications and try to uh the the automated systems drone in a box technology it's still new so we're trying to figure out how to integrate that into some of these projects um [Music] one of them that we have is we match the uh the toe of the beach bill I

**[19:55]** don't have a picture of it up here um ran into some server issues last night when I was finalizing some of these but um one of the things that we do is we actually have the drones in the air and we can map the the toe of the the reef or the hard bottom that's near shore uh that's that's an important natural resource we don't want to uh bury that during the course of constructing these beach projects they're placing sand out there and the the drones go out or uh sometimes we've even sent regular airplanes out to to map the area and then we were able to delineate the edge of this hard bottom and we know the extent of you know where we don't want to have soap being placed so that's another traditionally that's done before construction during the design phase and then after construction uh to make sure that the the toe of um the the toilet the hard bottom of the reef isn't being covered but uh you know using

**[20:57]** the automated systems that may be something that we can work into the into the process to to make sure that it's not happening during the course of construction where uh if if a detrimental effect is is is occurring we can essentially implement best management practices to uh to to stop what's impacting that resource um another application with the automated systems is we typically have um turbidity is monitored during the course of these projects and they'll have uh people on boats um going out and collecting uh water samples uh turbidity samples using sucky discs which which you lower you drop into the water and you essentially uh you count um you measure the length of line that is deployed until you can't see the top of the of a disk and then you're able to determine what the water clarity is based off of that well again using using drones and having an aerial perspective and

**[22:01]** using image processing uh could could again be used to alleviate the additional expense of having people going out on boats to measure the turbidity being able to measure it from the air and uh and and determine whether uh a plume is starting to uh be created from these projects would be a huge cost and time saving advantage um we haven't yet implemented it but I I do see that that is the way of the future um because if anybody's worked with with boats before or had uh deployed personnel and you have a team of you know five people on a boat and the amount of gas that a boat consumes and just the the process of deploying it and retrieving it it's quite expensive so having the ability to use drone technology with the automated uh with the automated drone in the box systems that that just could be a huge um cost saver for our clients and uh in addition to

**[23:04]** saving costs I think that would also provide uh better data source as well so again we can avoid any impacts to our our natural environment now I'm going to start a little talk a little bit more about crystal construction project management and the actual drone-in-the-box technology that that we've used and we've proposed on several several different projects um this is a nice aerial view of some of those ground photos that I was showing uh showing below of these uh of the beach will be replaced traditional construction just going to start off by letting everybody know what the purpose of coastal construction project management is it's really the first two bullet points summarize it in nutshell and that's really to enforce contract documents and ensure compliance with project permits um those those two uh [Music] those two components are really created to protect our our natural resources

**[24:08]** and to indicate uh detail of the design that is supposed to be constructed to achieve certain goals so that's really the purpose of construction project managers to make to make sure that those those two items are met additional other things that happen during the course of construction project management or administering the project engineering oversight daily you know various inspections quality assurance quality control reporting communicating with the public regulatory agencies amongst others some of these pictures you may see it and it's like well you get to hang out on the beach all day and uh you know watch things being constructed that why would you want to take that time away I mean it's a really good question because there is a lot of enjoyment with being out there to make sure that that everything's constructed as intended but it's it's um it's a long day I mean these these projects are a lot of the larger projects

**[25:10]** they're constructed 24 hours a day uh seven days a week and so it's a long period of time and we generally have to be out there for for a bulk of it a lot of the times we're out on site 12 hours a day and even using automated technology to reduce our time from being out there 12 hours a day to you know eight hours a day and not having to go out on weekends I mean that that can uh number one reduce some of the stress associated with these projects and you know coordinate you know uh having personnel being out on site can reduce the stress it also can provide like I said before the power power right now is data data is everything and that's really the future so the more data you have the better decisions that you can make so not only are we you know saving money by having these systems go out but I think that we're also um improving the quality of uh of our results um that first slide really showed what an ideal project was a nice white sand beach whereas everything's

**[26:14]** all nice and uh nice and sunny but um we do other projects this is a very iro restoration project over in louisiana uh the the video is a little choppy here oh boy cutting off my video but uh these are not as glamorous as the the beach restoration project but they're nonetheless just as important if not more important um so here you can see that the bunk is dredging sediment it's placing it it may seem like it's choppy but this is actually the speed that these things go and it's literally like watching paint dry it's uh you can be out on these systems and it's like wow that was a long day of not much happening they move slowly but they still need to be monitored in detail and again having automated systems be out there to to monitor and make sure that these uh projects are moving forward as intended is just a really big benefit

**[27:16]** so traditional methods is we have a dedicated technical observer on site to monitor the progress they take photos using a camera then you transfer all the photos and all these data these notes that you wrote from a notebook into a computer and then you send it off to the project manager they review it they send it back to the person that's on site and then they correct anything and then they send it off to the project team so it ensures this daily communication uh around sort of communication with both the engineer of records and also with the client um it's a lot of redundancy associated with that and because of that we've uh we started looking into different technology that can be used to uh reduce the redundancy and really uh improve the outcomes of this uh of the um project management process

**[28:19]** uh we put put together a um when we were first evaluating technology which led me to the drone in the box solutions we came up with a couple of goals um to find the correct system for this and that was include improving construction observation data reporting and issue resolution reduced cost to administer the contract and reduce risk those were the three primary goals that we set out and while after setting out those goals you can see over here on the other side we were looking into a variety of different types of drone systems and other tools that can be used we looked at fixed-wing rotator rtk and you know thought we had the whole whole box covered and then I learned about the drone in the box technology and that that was actually a reality nowadays which led me to uh further investigate and see how we could implement that on our projects and

**[29:23]** it um it really offers there's a lot of benefits that these fixed-wing type systems have with large area coverage but when you have something that's going on for um you know sometimes a year or more a project that's go takes place over a year um I'll I'll show you with the case study that I that I provided below um it really it's it's it's a cost saver and a time saver and you get more data for less effort so that that's why that's what led us to the drone in the box um technology the automated systems and um the approach that we put together is uh it's summarized there below but we wanted to observe project features and corrupt construction operations in real time so essentially what I wanted to do is since I'm more of a senior personnel I don't get to go out and play on the beach as much anymore

**[30:24]** I get stuck in the office nowadays but having these uh remote systems and some of the live live feed telemetry it can put it can put the engineer of record out on the project site where they can see what's going on and actually be present on site even though they may not be physically present collect data using remote sensing and mobile mapping technologies again that's where drones can be used to do that upload data to cloud storage using mobile and wi-fi connection the drone in the box is a perfect solution for that with some of the integrations that can be done with various software processing data using cloud-based tools we already do that without the drone-in-the-box technology but integrating that in with an automated system again reduces time reduces the possibility for error and it allows us to complete a better quality insurance quality control process

**[31:25]** okay good the cloud-based data management analysis this is the the first component of our automated system that we that we put together and that's really uh the I I outlined what the technology was on the left and the benefits on the right and a lot of this is to collect geospatial data and store them in a database that can be accessed by both uh us engineers the and and the clients where we have a central repository for all of the data to be to be stored uh the use of standard forms automated reporting where when boxes are checked it generates reports automatically uh having the data again in a gis type server where it creates a map-based interface where the client can go and you know filter information by date or by location or zoom into an area and see what data was collected in a specific

**[32:26]** area so it really it's a way of housing the data and storing the data rather than the traditional let's give you you know a 10-page report every day and over you know 300 days you have 3000 pages of reports you know it's great it tracks what was done out on the project site but as far as usability it it makes it very difficult to use that data so having the data in a geospatially referenced and um you know in a searchable or queryable database it it really you know it gives the data a purpose and it also decreases the burden of the personnel who are collecting the data because it's not so much about write a detailed sentence about every item that's going on it's a bunch of you know checking boxes boxes and [Music] making sure that we uh you know

**[33:27]** that the data is sent to the correct location this is just a um a screenshot of some of the of the tools that we've developed where it really replaces the old going out with uh when I first started geez I remember there it looked like I was going on a worldwide trek when I would go out to these um construction projects I would have a you know a notebook and have a gps device that you know in one pocket I would ever have a camera another pocket a tape measure and the other one and a a bit sample collection bags for collecting sand samples and you know it's just like you have 20 different things that you're walking out the door with um it's cumbersome um and then when you have construction equipment moving all around you it uh it creates a safety hazard there's there's a lot that you're holding um and your your attention isn't so much on the um on the on what's going on around you you're just so focused

**[34:29]** on completing the task at hand whereas that always kind of combined all of that into a simple uh app that you have on your phone where you're able to take photos uh check boxes uh add quick little notes and that all goes up to the to the central repository a database that can be searched so it really combines everything into a a usable tool and now everything can be done to run a a tablet or or a phone and it makes life a lot easier um the the second component to the technology enhancements that we uh that we recently put together is the ability to do uh remote observations um and this this is just using the drone capability but having having it linked where you can view what the drone is viewing live you can see what's going on on the construction site um

**[35:29]** that's really critical especially for someone like me I I live out in hawaii and I have projects that are all over the nation and um you know it's nice when I don't have to leave you know I can sit in behind the office and have drones deployed where I can actually physically see what's going on in the over the course of construction uh over the internet you know and then when an issue arises I'm able to see it first hand able to call the client share that issue with the client the client's able to see what's going on and we can talk about it and come up with a solution without having to wait on it without having to um you know find out all right when can we meet on site we're going to meet out there tomorrow you know and then by the time you show up the next day the problem may have resolved itself or it may be too late this is especially important and we work in louisiana a lot and there's a lot of pipelines that have oil and gas over there and when you're

**[36:35]** digging and you have operations that are excavating material around these pipelines the risk of impacting something and creating an oil spill is extremely high so you need to have a a plan in place to identify what the issue is and to quickly resolve it and that's where you know these remote observations really really come into play um also when installing like coastal structures where you have uh [Music] steel bulkheads being constructed and you need to you know do blow columns how you know whether it's being penetrated into the earth far enough and um how long it's taking is it going through uh really loose sediments where it's just sinking through there you can actually you know view it view it live and in real time so that it offers a real real benefit um I should have switched to this uh slide a little bit earlier it would have helped guide the presentation but this this shows some of the things that we're using these remote observations on here um I'll just go through

**[37:35]** through some of these slides but um here you can see that there's the one one of the items where the these technologies work well is post storm surveys everything from uh we respond to fema which is our federal emergency management agency here in the us uh where we're inspecting everything from inspecting houses and roofs uh for you know roofs may need to be repaired after a storm moves through the area other things that are going on is here you can see that the drones are deployed where they can actually uh survey different structures um you know take aerial shots and if they're linked in with an rt rtk type system we can extract elevation data from that and find out where damaged sections are located uh again just the second slide over the second little image over here it shows a beach restoration project where again I mentioned before we're able to track

**[38:37]** the volume of sand that's being placed monitor where the equipment's going make sure that it's staying within the project area um not going into sensitive areas uh provides a another means of communicating with our clients uh so that we can go to the project site without actually going to the project site so it allows us to be out on site a lot more frequently than we might be able to in the in the past um again this one down here it shows uh monitoring surveys that are done um right down here you got a little diver that's you know right next to the reef and it shows that the drones can be used to monitor the edge of the reef or the water quality that I mentioned earlier uh yeah personal on the beach another big part with these types of projects is uh but when you play sand it it doesn't stay in in place actually moves around quite a bit uh so you want to monitor where it's going how much is left and here we have a coastal structure construction project we're monitoring that I'm

**[39:37]** gonna go to the next slide just to get into the autonomous operations and this is the droid of the box technology where everything's fully autonomous automated and this is really where we've seen a lot of a lot of benefits in the construction industry trying to figure out how to implement this technology more on the uh the monitoring or pre-planning side of things uh have some ideas uh but those have not yet been implemented but for for construction it's um definitely a a system that we've been using uh this is just a little summary of what the automation process is I'm sure you guys are all aware if you're at this conference I'm sure it's already been talked about quite a bit but uh planning and scheduling the mission and then sending it up to the cloud having the drone in the docking station going out doing its mission coming back charging its batteries I mean it's just it's an elegant solution um when I when I was doing the research

**[40:39]** trying to figure out what would be you know a good way to expand the technology uh after talking about this and learning some of the tools that were put together it's just like wow this just this takes a lot of stress off of me I can now focus my efforts on you know more critical items that you need to think about uh you don't have to to so much think about all of the the mundane or routine tasks that need to be completed you can think about actually analyzing the data and what the data means which is really the importance of it um that's I'll just stop with that because that's really what you know what what the key is um this is gonna go into my pictures now have really come to a close and I could go over a quick case study um to really highlight what you know I over the presentation I hope I um pointed out some of the benefits of these technologies uh from a uh

**[41:41]** from a technological and also you know why it's needed you know to to collect the data the importance of the data um I think I covered all of that um but that's all great if our clients won't be interested if it's going to cost more than the traditional methods of collecting the data um so you have to make sure that that it's actually feasible from a cost perspective and that you're going to get buy-in from your clients and then it's also gonna that it's gonna have some sort of uh positive benefit on the pocket you know on the on the on the wall there um so here I'm just going to go over a couple of different options and compare them for you uh this is just a theoretical type summary of what a 300-day construction project may cost evaluating the traditional observations versus the remote observations versus the drone-in-the-box

**[42:41]** technology um so with option zero the traditional observations there's no improvement in data management or time uh baseline costs we're gonna assume a 300 day construction project uh you generally rotate you have a senior construction inspector and a junior construction inspector that may be out on site uh they generally swap back and forth two weeks on two weeks off that's the traditional method that that we go by um 12-hour days and this just kind of identifies that okay for a 300-day construction project that may cost the client 500 000 and that's just for monitoring this construction these these projects with placing the amount of sand that we're doing just to give you an idea and order of magnitude they're about you know they range anywhere from 5 million to 35 million we've even had like 100 million dollar projects so they're um it's a large investment which is why the clients are putting a large investment into making sure that they're done that they're constructed correctly

**[43:42]** uh the the first option is the cloud-based data management analysis that's essentially getting everything into the geospatial database that I that I mentioned before and um essentially assume that that would provide an hour of savings per construction observation day uh because you don't have to transfer all the data from a notebook to a to a computer send it off to an engineer you know you cut down on that redundancy cycle so I figured that that says about an hour a day that reduces the construction cost over the course of the 300 days by about uh 40 000 but it costs 25 000 to implement so over the course of construction you get about a three percent savings on the on the contract observation cost so there is a benefit to that our clients have realized that that's why we're implementing that sort of technology on those type of projects the second option is the um remote observation having the ability to take the drone out there view construction observations from a different perspective um and not

**[44:45]** having to put yourself in harm's way like again avoid the quicksand that because you don't have to worry about transporting it reduces the site transportation when you're on site for getting into some of these trickier areas you can use the drone to access more difficult locations um so you don't have to worry as much about transportation so that saves another hour a day uh this this two hours a day this is because it's also including the hour from the geospatial database that we created so with this option which includes the geospatial database you're saving about two hours a day which comes down to about eighty thousand dollars worth of personnel savings but you also have the cost to implement so it cost about twenty five thousand dollars to implement the portal as mentioned before and about thirty thousand dollars for the remote observation equipment all the software that's required the various insurances the software that needs to be

**[45:45]** developed to analyze the the data that's being collected so in a nutshell after everything's set in time you get about a 30 000 savings or six percent of the contract observation cost again that's another three percent jump it's very beneficial to the clients and we get better data now the nice thing about this is because you're able to view everything from a remote perspective it may reduce the need to have a senior construction inspector on site because now the engineer of record can can virtually be on site so you can send more junior personnel out to the site and not necessarily need to have a senior observer on site so when you take that into account then it saves 120 000 in personnel cost and that really bumps up the net savings to about 13 of the contract observation cost about 65 000 so it's a big savings to the client so this this ability to view things

**[46:48]** remotely is a critical component because you can now get the data that's needed to the the people that are actually making the decisions and you can have um you know you don't have to have as much senior personnel physically on site they can be in the office option 3a this is where we get into the autonomous operations okay it includes the project portal as mentioned before you still have the ability to do the remote observations but now it includes the autonomous surveys and what this does is because you're having the drones create conduct automated um surveys of the area you don't necessarily need to the number of routine tasks that you have to do decreases so you save another two hours worth of time of tasks that you need to do on site

**[47:52]** about that my dog was about to go crazy um reduces the number of uh four hours of it reduces it four hours a day um so now your construction observation cost is reduced by 165 000 and but again there's the cost to implement so you have the project portal implement implementation cost remote observation and then also you now have the cost to implement these autonomous systems getting the drone in the box the appropriate uh software to run it so incense in general it results in a net savings about fifty thousand dollars ten percent of the contract cost once you again like the previous system it you're able to get this more senior personnel on site virtually so you again you don't need you don't necessarily need the senior construction inspector out on site so once you reduce that now you get a net savings of 80 000 or 16 of the contract observation cost which is quite significant and that's really one of the key benefits that we're selling to our

**[48:57]** clients is that you know number one we're getting better data and number two we're saving you money how can you say no this table was just created to kind of summarize all of those different you know the different options that are on the table and how they stack up next to each other so you can see as you as you move into using more and more technology even though the cost of technology may be increasing the cost savings that are passed down to the client also increases so it with that being said I mean there there is a a cut off where this technology you know where technologies may not be useful um if it's if if the price point exceeds the point of you know of the savings that I realized well then the the risk may be too high maybe too high but if we're able to show a decent cost savings and able to mitigate the risk that might be something that that's something that the clients are are interested in we're interested in and we're

**[49:58]** hoping that the community in general appreciates because we do believe that it'll improve the ability to um you know to to better manage these projects and save our our natural resources um here is just a summary of the alternative analysis the various benefits that that we've identified from it um reducing hours on site the redundancy associated with transferring analyzing data prove the ability to share contract documents and observations data quality that's a another key item um real time decision making improving collaboration just like what I started out the presentation about is collaboration is key to to success in any project or uh managing risk reducing hazards uh and expands the um it really it really improves the visual aspects of the project some of the things that need to be managed with these are uh the fear of technology some people are a little bit hesitant to incorporate new technology which is why the

**[51:03]** you know cost point is important to look at uh power supply is another uh risk that needs to be managed internet connection some of these projects are constructed in uh very remote locations so transferring the data up to the cloud is a risk that needs to be mitigated vandalism thus damage um that you can possibly just put a security fence around these systems replacement um now the one thing that I do want to leave with and this is this is my last slide here is the mapping capabilities and accuracy um one of the things that we're using is you know the ground control points you can install semi-permanent ground control points but rtk technologies would be a it's a key advancement to to the drone technology and uh one of the things that may be interesting and I'll I'll leave this with the group is um having an rtk system where the actual base station of the rtk is integrated with the docking station itself uh that would really uh that that

**[52:07]** could be a game changer you know having that ability where you don't have to install a separate base station with the docking station and it's all integrated into the docking station's house and it's collecting long-term uh long-term uh our long-term satellite data so that it so the docking station knows exactly where its position is and it's reeling that position to the drone that's going into and out of the docking station that'll I see that as kind of the next area for improvement if it hasn't already been done I'm just not aware of it so with that if you uh if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them um yes my email here's my email as well um because I know I probably went right up to the uh time limit so thank you it's it's almost uh 15 minutes over time limit but then there was a very there was great presentation andrew especially you covered all aspects right from the challenges I now know what kind of trouble people need to go and go into you

**[53:09]** know construct these beachfront properties and from there to you know sharing more about these different applications where remote drone operations can play in another key aspect was that excellent case study where you literally showed uh how cost savings or what kind of roi can people generate by you know using autonomous technology so I'll just quickly take a couple of questions because before we jump in the audience needs to go in for another session um have you integrated oriental imagery catalogs drone and terrestrial imagery into arcgis online field apps have we integrated the I just want to make sure that I understood your question right have we integrated the drone technology into the field app the arcgis field app yes partially um we've we've used the site scan through arcgis and the drone technology

**[54:09]** we're still working on the full automation of that and having it in more of a gis rather rather than a um rather than individual images or figures that are created so we we're in the process of doing that right now all right and uh I think we have another question around what is the best drone that you've uh used for doing these construction project management well but one of the things that is I don't know if a best drone is a I don't know if I can qualify it as a best drone but my personal preference is the ability to use off-the-shelf technology in these solutions so that if something happens when you're on site you can essentially go to the nearest you know technology store and purchase the drone that doesn't necessarily mean it's the best drone but it means it's something that we

**[55:12]** look for is if if something happens you want to be able to replace your equipment easily um so that's that's really my answer with that one is having off-the-shelf technology is a good benefit all right I think I'll just take one other question uh has security been a major concern in construction sites and have you been using drones for them um some of our other projects possibly uh for what we're working on with the beaches it has security isn't so much of an issue rather than um making sure that the contractor stays where he's supposed to stay so that may be another sense of security they're supposed to stay within certain confines and not go beyond certain boundaries because they don't you know we don't want them to damage any adjacent resources so security in that sense yes security in the general sense of security on

**[56:16]** other construction projects it probably comes into play I'm just I focus more on the uh but my focus is on coastal restoration um so I can't speak from direct experience on the uh on the security aspects of like vertical construction or something of that nature all right and I think this is the last question that I'm gonna take uh the question is what happens uh when automated drones go or there's a problem that occurs or is it damaged by some unforeseen um conditions I know you've covered the risk bit uh in in the later bit of the presentation but maybe you would want to reiterate for the audience what happens if a drone gets damaged during the operation yeah that's why that's why we're that's why one of the um mitigation uh measures that we implement is trying to use off-the-shelf technology so that it's something that can be uh acquired quickly and easily um we realize that that may not be the case with some of the docking stations because the docking stations are

**[57:21]** generally a little bit more involved uh but I I think that that's a you know for the construction industry is off the shelf quickly or something that can be quickly acquired or easily acquired is a critical component all right the the very last question that I I would like to take is um there's there's a lot of question is there a need for drones to be on for 24 7 for construction on 24 7 maybe not um could it be beneficial yes but then you also come into the point of that's a lot of data to crunch so uh most of the time like I would say when we were planning our missions for um for the latest project is I had a goal of having it do the survey I mean it was a large large large area um

**[58:22]** 800 acres or something like that you're using a rotary drone you essentially can only cover the area once during a day by you know breaking it up into different sections um so it really depends on the area and what's up and what's going on great uh thanks andrew thank you for covering these questions there are a lot of other questions that are in but unfortunately due to time constraints we are going to have to drop this session but uh all the audience still in there you have andrew's coordinates right up there so reach out to him at any point of time uh andre if you're going to be available during the networking sessions feel free to interact with the audience and yes so I hope you all have a great uh rest of the next gen uh have a great time in the rest of the nesgen sessions uh see you some in some other session soon we have three more sessions coming up so stay tuned go to the reception and check the schedule and join the session of your choice thank you everyone have a great day

**[59:24]** thank you thank you andrew for making time such early in the morning but uh it was a brilliant presentation so thank you once again thank you yes all right bye