Stakeholder Perspectives on the Adoption of Drones in Construction Projects

Drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and services based on them have been used globally in various sectors including but not limited to construction, real estate, e-commerce, agriculture, utilities & energy, financial services, and media & entertainment. Use of such robots have a potential to reduce the cost & time and increase safety & productivity among other benefits. The use of drones is increasing in India and the UAV market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 18% during 2017-2023 in terms of revenue. While the use of drones is primarily in defence sector compared to commercial use, it has been reported that drone-based solutions are being explored in agriculture, energy & utilities, insurance, infrastructure, media & entertainment and mining in India. Hence, there exists a need to investigate the level of awareness, application, benefits and barriers of using drones in Indian construction. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the level of awareness and the application of drones among the key stakeholders in Indian construction through questionnaire survey-based quantitative research among key stakeholders. The study revealed there is high level of awareness of drones and low level of usage in Indian construction. The overall pattern in the data revealed that the respondents have rated most of the indicators highly important. Following are the top-rated attributes: Drones must be experimented before using it in the construction projects (relevance); Surveying (application); Drones provide real time updates from the site (benefit); Weather related issues (barrier) and Health and Safety (KPI). It has been observed that there is statistically significant difference in perception among contractors, consultants and clients with respect to relevance & application of drones and not so for benefits, barriers & impact on KPI.