The Adoption of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) Technology in the Construction Industry: Construction Stakeholders’ Perception

Abstract

In parallel to the Industry Revolution 4.0, the introduction of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) in construction is expected to improve the construction project management efficiency. Although much research works has been done by the academics in uncovering the advantageous potentials of using UAV in construction, the barriers and drivers that influence the construction companies towards adopting UAV have received scant or very limited attention from the academics. Even though the UAV technology infrastructure has progressively been developed and improved by the government and the UAV manufacturers with some construction companies successfully got on board the platform to tap the potentials for gains, however there are construction companies have yet to act on it. This paper aims to identify the main drivers of the construction companies in adopting and integrating the UAV into their construction activities or business. The semi-structured interviews were designed using theory of interpersonal communication in achieving an honest exchange of information on the perception of the participants, their encounters, experiences, views and expectation with respect to the use of UAV in their business activities. This study was conducted with eight respondents from Johor Bharu and Kuala Lumpur of diverse background and experience in the construction and UAV. The findings show that relative advantage, education, knowledge of technology, positive attitude of the decision makers, compatibility of technology, simplicity of technology, and observability are the six drivers to the adoption of UAV in the construction industry. Therefore, this study may serve as a conceptual framework for the future research works on the adoption of UAV in the Malaysian construction industry as the industry is increasingly digitally driven with the emergence of new technology such as the UAV application technology.