Drones on construction sites
Builders use drones to collect real-time data about projects and understand what’s happening on site. Aerial insights improve progress tracking and help catch problems early — before they become costly or add weeks to a project’s timeline. But progress tracking is far from the only way construction companies use drones. By spending less than an hour each week mapping a job site, contractors gain access to an unprecedented amount of knowledge about nearly every aspect of their project. Drones do more than improve communication and help keep projects on track. They also increase safety, save time and resources, fast-track surveying, and deliver accurate measurements. As construction companies turn to drones for aerial data collection, the construction industry has seen a rise in the demand for higher data accuracy. Today, companies are using ground control points (GCP) — ground markers measured with GPS to calculate absolute global positioning . Drone use on the job site has skyrocketed in the last year — surging 239% - and this rate of growth will increase in the coming years.
The Experiment
The goal was to have participants rebuild a design on a pegboard that could not be replicated from memory. We chose to work with a pegboard because we needed a task that could represent a scaled down form of construction work. It is important to note that the task we asked participants to complete is not as physically difficult as work found on a construction site. However, the mental aspects behind the task (keeping focus, making agile and precise movements and working within a time frame) are similar to conditions found on construction sites. Also note that the drone used for the experiment is not nearly as loud, large or physically disruptive as a drone that would be found on a construction site.
The pegboard is a perforated plastic rectangle plank with holes or slots. The pegboard used in this experiment has 1200 slots. Each slot could hold one pegboard piece and each pegboard piece blanketed an area of nine slots. The design had to be replicated correctly, meaning the pegboard pieces had to be in the correct structural position, but where the design was created on the board did not matter.
Each participant completed three trials. The first trial was without the drone present, the second time with the drone present, and finally with the drone present but the participant had earplugs that would limit the sound of the drone. There was a ten minute gap between each trial. The team measured two key components ; the time each participant took to complete the task, and the number of mistakes per trial that each participant committed. A mistake is considered a misplacement of a peg with respect to other pegs in the design. If a participant removed or replaced a peg it was also counted as a mistake.
The pegboard is a perforated plastic rectangle plank with holes or slots. The pegboard used in this experiment has 1200 slots. Each slot could hold one pegboard piece and each pegboard piece blanketed an area of nine slots. The design had to be replicated correctly, meaning the pegboard pieces had to be in the correct structural position, but where the design was created on the board did not matter.
Each participant completed three trials. The first trial was without the drone present, the second time with the drone present, and finally with the drone present but the participant had earplugs that would limit the sound of the drone. There was a ten minute gap between each trial. The team measured two key components ; the time each participant took to complete the task, and the number of mistakes per trial that each participant committed. A mistake is considered a misplacement of a peg with respect to other pegs in the design. If a participant removed or replaced a peg it was also counted as a mistake.
Our Findings
Based on the data we collected we found that drone traffic can be distracting for workers trying to complete a task. In the experiment we measured participants performance based on the time needed to complete the pegboard task and the amount of errors committed while completing the pegboard task. Our test results showed that more errors were made by workers trying to complete the pegboard task when a drone was present. We also observed an uptick in the time required by participants to complete the task when the drone was present.
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Table 1.1 |
Table 1.2 |
Participants found that the noise created when the drone was flown near them created the strongest distraction.
The data table 1.2 represents the time it took participants to complete the pegboard task. The data table in figure 1.1 measured the errors committed by participants completing the pegboard task when the drone was not present and when the drone was present. The data vindicates our original claim that drones can be a distraction for workers. |
Key Takeaways
Our hope for this project was to design a task that could represent a human working on a construction with a utility drone present, at a scaled down level. We used two metrics to measure the possible impact of drone interference on a human.
The first metric was the time required by the participant to complete the construction of a specific design on a pegboard. 66 percent of participants required more time to complete the task when a drone was present. We then observed a decrease in the time required by participants to complete the task when they were allowed to use earplugs while enduring the drone interference.
The second metric was the number of mistakes committed while the participant recreated the design on the pegboard. Again, when a drone was present the participants committed more mistakes. Also, less mistakes were made when the participants were allowed to use earplugs while enduring drone interference.
The first metric was the time required by the participant to complete the construction of a specific design on a pegboard. 66 percent of participants required more time to complete the task when a drone was present. We then observed a decrease in the time required by participants to complete the task when they were allowed to use earplugs while enduring the drone interference.
The second metric was the number of mistakes committed while the participant recreated the design on the pegboard. Again, when a drone was present the participants committed more mistakes. Also, less mistakes were made when the participants were allowed to use earplugs while enduring drone interference.
Drones can be an agile and efficient tool for humans on a construction site. Drones are becoming more prevalent on construction sites. They can be used to scan large areas of land or large buildings for defects and nuances. They can also be used to offer aerial video support to construction workers on the ground, or delivery tools across a construction site. We believe that drones will continue to increase their presence on construction sites. For this reason the team believes that using earplugs is the best option for construction workers with exposure to drone interference. The team believes in the full integration of drones on construction sites in the safest possible manner.
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Originally, the team was going to have 25 participants for the experiment. Sadly, due to the COVID-19 pandemic we were not able to collect as much data as planned.