Effective use of Quadcopter drones for safety and security monitoring in a building construction sites: Case study Enugu Metropolis Nigeria

Abstract

The hazardous nature of the Nigerian building construction industry due to lack of construction data and records of incidents which have led to loss of life, property damage, injuries and loss of materials in an average construction site is alarming. The aim and objective of this study is to know how effective the use of drone to monitor safety and security in Nigerian Building Construction site can improve dangerous site situations. In other to achieve the aim and objective of this study the following were postulated: To examine the level of awareness of drones in Enugu State Nigeria? What is the level of adoption of drones among construction stakeholder in Enugu State Nigeria? To examine the limitations of using drones/UAVs (Quadcopter) for safety and security monitoring within Building Construction sites in Enugu State Nigeria. Genius-idea drones and DJI Phantom 3 Standard Drones were used in this study. The targeted professionals/stakeholder was architects, builders, engineers, quantity surveyors, land surveyors, estate surveyors and clients. However, 242 people responded to the questionnaire. Data collated was analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) computer software version 23.0 for windows. However, 66% of respondents were aware of drone concept in construction monitoring while 51% respondents adopted drones in different sectors of construction monitoring. However, in safety and security monitoring 17.6% adoption was indicated as low between stakeholders in the Enugu State Building Construction industry. The use of drones in the developed world namely America, Europe, China, Australia and India have been employed in safety and security monitoring and in construction progress monitoring of both high rising and vast projects with great success. In the Nigerian perspective, drones as a tool for monitoring safety and security of all phases of construction are still at the nascent stage. The effective use of drones in Nigeria is encouraged since reality imagery collected from drones could be used for analyzing and evaluating of ongoing construction activity like planning movement on site and monitoring materials on site and could be stored for future references. Key words: Quadcopter drone (UAV), reality images, safety and security monitoring, DJI Phantom 3 standard.