Automated 360° Photographic Data Capture for Building Construction Projects: Analysis of a Prototype

Effectively carrying out the digital documentation of a construction project site makes it possible to capture important events, allows for the measurement of progress, and creates an archive of data that can be called upon if issues arise in the future. It is best if the documentation can occur at regularly scheduled intervals to eliminate the possibility of missing important project details. Anecdotally, it has been found that practitioners are not good at keeping up with this important task – it is often viewed as a chore for a junior-level employee to undertake when there are no other important tasks to accomplish. An alternative is necessary. Robotic automation is often viewed as a good replacement for tedious activities that require a degree of accuracy in repetitiveness. Considering the possibilities for this type of automation, the researchers sought to understand the accuracy and reliability of a prototype programmable ground-based drone to automatically capture 360° project photographs. Experimentation was conducted by scoring the drone’s ability to complete a 10-point trial run across three different terrain types. This study focused on how terrain affects the drone’s accuracy and validates the findings by incorporating industry feedback about the prototype being proposed in this paper.