 Hey, it's Friday afternoon on August 12th, Mike Elliott hosting for Ted Ralston where the drone leads here at Think Tech Hawaii, Pioneer Plaza in downtown Honolulu. This week's topic, we wanted to talk about a very timely topic of drones and construction. It's something that with the new rules set with the Part 107 rules that are taking place that are going to be in effect here at the end of the month, it's really going to open up the industry for utilization of drones on a regular basis. So between some of the hardware and software, I wanted to bring on a guest here, Chris Bays. And Chris, I really appreciate you coming in. Can you tell me a little bit about what you do and where you're working? Thank you. I'm Chris Bays. I'm the BIM Manager at Align Judging Construction Company. And BIM is 3D modeling in the construction industry. We kind of 3D prototype buildings before they're built and try to work out some problems. Okay. Some of the stuff that we've heard and seen that the drone industry along with some of the software developers for some of the platforms that are out there are actually starting to merge together with the industry itself. You know, we've seen that some of the platforms are utilized as something as simple as a Phantom 3, Phantom 4, very lightweight, small, able to capture data, able to be pre-programmed for flight with some of the mapping software that's out there with whether it's through PIX 4D, Maps Made Easy has a program that allows for mapping and others, and then some of the software platforms. What are some of the ones that you guys are starting to look at and utilize? Well, one of the big players is Autodesk, obviously. They started with AutoCAD back in the early 80s, and they've really been a big player in the construction and architecture engineering industry. And they are looking very heavily at photogrammetry and how it combines with some of their other technology. So could you just quickly, for folks to find, you know, photogrammetry, what is that really? What is that term kind of income? So photogrammetry in my kind of simplistic terms is making three models from photographs. So the more photos that you have, the better that model can be. And of course, there's ways you can optimize the angles and the quality of the photos that are taken to get a high quality output. So, you know, a recent discussion that I had with actually one of the folks that works with Hawaiian dredging talking about one of the projects that they worked on that they wish at the time when they first started, you know, had drones available and had regular photography taking place for coordination, you know, on the job site. There were some things that kind of got a little confused. One piece got ahead of another, and it was kind of after the fact. But if they thought if they would have had, you know, kind of an airborne input to some of the planning that it may have simplified some of the construction and not caused some of the problems that they had on the site. Do you hear that being part of the future? Yeah, it's always a challenge in the construction site where documenting what's happening from day to day, you know, we have smartphones, we take tons of photos now. But we put all those photos in a folder, and when it's time to go back and figure out, okay, what really happened in the past, it's always a challenge to go back and really figure out what was going on. And I see, you know, obviously with a drone, you're able to get a much bigger picture of the overall job site. With photogrammetry, you're able to get that almost granular data where you have the overall picture, and then if you need to zoom in and look at something in detail, you have all of that in one place. And it makes it a lot easier to go back in time and figure out, okay, what happened at this particular point in time. And also for planning, this is what the job site looks like today. This is what it needs to do tomorrow, and this is how we can plan to make it happen. So that's something too, I think you're seeing, you have the ability to actually shoot the same job site, whether it's daily, weekly, whatever that periodicity that you require, and actually be able to share that out with multiple players who are involved in different elements of construction, or even with partners that maybe aren't even on the job site or in the local community, somebody in Europe, somebody in Asia, back in the mainland, and then be able to ask them pertinent questions, I guess, to some of the work that's going on. Sure, even paying the bills, you know, it's a lot of what we do in construction is just quantifying what's been done. If you're in a factory setting or in a warehouse, you have machines and you have automatic ways to keep tabs of how many pieces have been made. With construction, it's a lot less straightforward. It's a rapidly changing environment. We're building things all over the place, and every building is unique. So I think that UAVs will help us kind of turn it more into a factory setting and really quantify, okay, what's going on, what sort of production rates. We, of course, track all of that right now in construction, but it's a very manual process. So you see maybe in the near future having somebody who's a team or a couple of people that are just dedicated to do this on a job site as part of the overall construction. Is that what you're... Sure, sure, either a dedicated person that goes around to job sites or a couple of people certified on each job site so that it may not be their full-time job, but you have somebody who's certified that can go out every day. And now with the new regulations, without having to be a licensed pilot, it makes it a lot more feasible to be able to do that. So, you know, we're pulling up a couple examples from some of the software manufacturers out there and stuff, and they're basically showing how you can use some of this drone data. This is a great example of volumetric information, you know, how much material, you know, is on the job site. If I need to move dirt, well, how many dump trucks of dirt might that be or how, you know, what's changed over time? You know, there was this much, now there's this much, you know, so that some of those data points can actually be garnered from some of the software just from taking the photographs, putting it in there, and then even sharing it out very collaboratively. So, there's some differences too in some of the software that's out there. You know, we've seen some that are hosted online, cloud-based, kind of like with Propeller. They're an Australian-based company, they recently partnered up with DJI and they have, like I said, used cloud computing to do some of their work and stuff, but you can share the same information, you know, with numerous partners. But then there's others that are more proprietary to the computer that they're actually operating on. You can only share limited types of products off of that too. So, you know, it's interesting to see, I guess, where some of this is going to go with the industry itself. But like I said, this example, you know, just being able to share out with multiple people. We've gotten a lot of good feedback in some of the jobs that we've done because they have all the tools as you would with a desktop version, but it's a cloud-based version of the software. So, it seems to be very popular amongst a lot of the customers. Sure. I think it makes sense that a lot of things in construction right now are moving to the cloud. If you think about how a construction site works, you have a general contractor, you might have a dozen subcontractors on a large job, and they all have their own ID departments, they all have their own servers, their own domains, and the cloud kind of breaks down those walls in between all these different players on their job site and lets them all access the same piece of information. Yeah, definitely. So, it's something where safety kind of comes into consideration, too. You know, drones, I heard one of the meetings we had gone to a while back, you know, it's the dull, dirty, dangerous, the 3Ds of why you want to use drones, you know, the dull being just going out and flying, like basic mapping, you know, but the drone's going to fly out, it's just taking pictures, you know, it's just quick, simple, but the dirty stuff in some of these situations, and then also things that are a little bit dangerous where you're trying to maybe survey equipment or take a look at something that you don't want to put somebody physically on where you could actually utilize the drone, so. Sure, sure, and the hardware technology is evolving so rapidly where some of the collision avoidance and these other features that are coming out will let us get close enough to monitor something on the side of a building where we don't have to put, you know, a man hoist or someone high up on that building where there's fall risk. So it makes a lot of sense that drones can start to replace some of the situations where we put a human in a dangerous position. Yeah, definitely. There was some tower work that we recently asked about supporting, and you know, one of the things was there had been a lot of items built onto this tower. They wanted, you know, were concerned about actually putting physically, putting somebody up in there. They wanted a closer look, but the only way to actually physically do that was with a drone to actually get close enough to take a good look to make sure that the physical integrity of the tower itself possibly was intact enough to put personnel on there to remove various pieces of equipment and then maybe attach new pieces of equipment off of this tower. So as a prime example, you know, within construction itself. So, you know, we have some other manufacturers that are kind of merging, I think too, the next, you know, the drones and the software together. And one of the companies that we had seen was a Skycatch. I think it's right here where, you know, Skycatch is looking to kind of bring their own version of a drone and their software to the construction sites. And, you know, recently for them, as you see in this great 3D model example that you can build, measure, you know, there's just so much that you can information you can pull from this data that was taken on a particular job site with a very inexpensive drone. Right now, though, the one he's carrying is $999. Sure. So, you know, it just puts powerful tools in the hands of folks on some of these job sites. Yeah, I think a lot of the software is looking at how they can kind of climb the value chain right now. Photos from the air is great. And then photogrammetry is even better. And the next part is, I think, feature extraction where the software starts to recognize some of the things that are in that model. And it starts to be able to tell you, oh, you know, I can see that vehicle's removed. I can see that dirt was moved. I know how many columns were poured. And since we do a lot of things virtually in 3D already, we can start getting percentage complete. You know, you mentioned that you can quantify, you know, the amount of dirt on the job site. If we have, you know, a 3D model of what the site is today and we have a design model of what it's supposed to be at the end of the job, we can fly a drone every day and then start getting percentage complete as you start to work the job. So, I think there's a lot of potential for the software to add value to what the hardware is capturing. So, we're talking primarily, you know, photo, video. But what are the sensors do you see being of use possibly, you know, on some of these job sites or in construction? You know, there's others that are out there. But do you see more use in some of the other smaller lightweight sensor systems? Oh, sure, sure, they're all getting less expensive too. We've been, I've been doing laser scanning work for over five years now. And it's very expensive equipment, very accurate. But people are starting to put that on UAVs now. Thermal imaging, RTK GPS for higher positional accuracy. So there's a lot of different methods that people are using. And, you know, with Moore's law, with these sensors all getting smaller and all getting cheaper, it's making more and more sense to, you know, let's not manually move that around the site. You know, on a large construction site, it still takes me at least a full day to laser scan it. But I can fly a UAV and make a photogrammetry model in 15 minute, 20 minute flight. Yeah, definitely. So, yeah, I mean, things like I said, LiDAR units getting smaller, lighter, cheaper. You know, there's, you know, FLIR camera systems on the other end for like agriculture. You know, there's some near infrared systems that can help, you know, in agriculture, not necessarily in the construction industry per se. But I think part of this is too, is putting these sensors airborne, you know, and seeing what kind of data that you're actually able to collect. And, you know, is there something there that's of use? You know, and in the future, I think you're going to see some, maybe camera systems that have multiples carried on the single drone, if these get small enough, where you can switch back and forth between some of them. Right now, most of them are very single, single source, single sensor source. Just the camera and just some imaging. Sure, sure. And you know, if you think, I almost like to think of the UAVs as a miniature version of what's happening with anonymous vehicles right now. You have Tesla and some of these progressive companies coming with a vehicle that can navigate the real world. And, you know, as I said, job site is a rapidly moving place. So you might have a pre-programmed path, but you have a tower crane moving around and it might get in the way of something, so. So we'll be back here shortly at Think Tech Hawaii where the drone leads Friday afternoon, it's Mike Elliott. Aloha, I'm Chantal Seville, the host of The Savvy Chick Show. You can watch the show every Wednesday at 11 a.m., Honolulu time, and enjoy how to be inspired and powered. If you're a woman or girl, everyone is welcome, but it's really dedicated to you. And we look forward to seeing you. You can also find us on thinktechhawaii.com. See you soon, aloha. I'm Jay Feidl, and I'm the host of Research in Manoa, Mondays from 12 to 1, on thinktechhawaii.com. Take a look at us and learn about geophysics, learn about planetology, learn about the ocean and earth sciences at UH Manoa. You'll really enjoy it. So come around, we'll see you then. Aloha, I'm Kaui Lucas, host of Hawaii is My Mainland every Friday here on Think Tech Hawaii. I also have a blog of the same game at kauilukas.com where you can see all of my past shows. Join me this Friday and every Friday at 3 p.m. Aloha. Hi, it's Friday afternoon. No, this is Mike Elliott, filling in for Ted Ralston where the drone leads. And my guest today, Chris Bays. And we've been talking about drones and construction and how they can benefit you in the construction industry with the simplicity of some of the technology that's out there, the low cost of some of the platforms, the software, and then also the changing of the rules with the FAA with a new part 107 rules that do not require a pilot's license. And that was one of the biggest obstacles in utilization of drones and a lot of applications was having qualified pilots. Now you can train individuals to actually use them for your job site. And I know that Chris has been kind of leading the way here with his company and the future and where he sees this going. And so that's part of it too is the next step of getting people qualified, trying to overcome that barrier. So there's two things you can either if you're a large company maybe do it internally and have your own cadre of equipment and trained personnel. And like you were saying earlier, maybe they bounce around between various job sites or it can be contracted out to other folks that are capable of actually providing that information. And then, but along those lines, one of the things that we had talked about before the show a few days back was the issue of surveying and how important surveying is and the quality of some of that. Could you talk about that as to what there's folks out there flying and making maps, but then there's also the requirements for surveys for legal purposes and obviously safety and construction. Could you talk about that a little bit? Sure, sure. And I know that there are surveyors on Island looking into this UAV technology, but simple photogrammetry is obviously not a replacement for surveying. I'm not a licensed surveyor and I think the majority of people who are flying these don't have the background of a licensed surveyor, but it can work with each other. We can hire a licensed surveyor to come in and establish ground control points and help get our information from that UAV more accurate. So I think it can work well having a licensed surveyor and helping them kind of get you set up to use a UAV effectively in the job site. So we've seen some recent articles where there have been some blended solutions of aerial drone use to do this and then also they set the ground control points with the actual certified surveyor out there verifying this information and then once that data was fully collected, then looking at it and realizing that the combination of the two was sometimes more accurate than just straight ground survey work and it depends on the type of terrain too. So if you're in Hilly Mountainous jungle type terrain, sometimes the augmentation of an aerial platform may actually be helpful in getting a more realistic. Sure, sure. A lot of photogrammetry is a line of site technology. So if you've got forest in the way and you're trying to get the ground beneath it, you're not gonna use a line of site technology to do that. So there's a lot of variables where someone can't just think, oh, now I can get a drone and make a good map. You have to think about ground control points, you have to think about what the ground cover is. We've had job sites before that were, basically we had to send someone out to clear a job site to some degrees just so we can measure it so it can quantify it. Yeah, and other things too when you're flying the drone itself, issues of overlap of the imagery and stuff, you need anywhere from 70 to 80%, even up to 90%, depending on the type of terrain sometimes of image overlap, ahead of you, left and right and behind you on every single photo so that when the computer's stitching this together, it can actually do a decent model. Low winds, we've talked about that too, where if you've got trees, and you have multiple images and the trees are in different directions, you can get this swirl effect in some of the trees. The lighting, just in general, having a sunny day sometimes is extremely helpful to brighten up some dark areas and then how you're flying the routes themselves too. We talked about that, how some different offset routes and how the cameras are angled and stuff too to actually be able to get more of a realistic 3D model without missing certain aspects of the, so it is a lot of work in the air to be able to pull that piece together with that. I think it's also, it's kind of fun to look at the things that computers can do better than humans can. I can pre-program a perfect grid pattern to fly photogrammetry and compensate for that overlap and everything you're talking about, but if I were to try to manually control something and fly that, there's no way I could even come close to matching what the computer can do for me. And what's pretty amazing too is with some of the software that's actually operating the drones when it's programming these routes, it's very much an automated type of system. The rules currently require the piloting command to have the controller in their hands, but they're actually, the craft itself is flying a pre-programmed route, shooting pitchers at the intervals that are required along that route over the area that's needed and stuff. So that's, you're seeing that next generation will leap towards some degree of autonomy in some of these systems. And I think we're talking to where, that's something that Skycatch, one of the companies that is out there that's doing a lot of work in Asia, is trying to get to autonomous drones on the construction site and then blend that with their software, downloading the data, changing out batteries, just where it doesn't really need a lot of attention from an individual, but it can actually fly the site itself. Yeah, and the technology has really caught up beyond the law at this point. There's things that the hardware and software can do that aren't legal yet. Like you said, we have, right now we have to have someone in charge watching that UAV, but the next step may be something that flies on its own. So right here is a great example, guys out doing traditional surveying work, it's hard work and you've got to sit there and measure, mark, move, measure, and just again and again on and on. And in certain terrains it can be kind of timely. So this particular example and what the overall cost and time is, and then coming back with a simple drone, programming it and basically flying that same area, shows you, can show you the difference between those two. And then we talked also briefly about the legality issues of, is this something, if I'm on a construction site and I just need to know how much material is there, it's not a legal issue. So surveying it for legal purposes, it's not as much of an issue. And I can actually just figure out some volume metrics and I can kind of turn this into information that I can use to schedule removal or if I'm making aggregate to cement factory, how much do I need? How much am I using? How much is left? And then if I need to shift over from one type of material to another, I can pre-plan that instead of be reactive. So that's where we see some of this going in the future with this industry. So on the future though, do you see some of this turning into drones that are operating internal to buildings and actually surveying? We talked briefly about LiDAR. And if you wanna just talk briefly on that technology and kind of what it does, but utilizing drones maybe internal to buildings to do a survey and measurement. Sure, sure. Well, photogrammetry is a passive measuring technology, meaning that it's using the ambient light on that job site. It's capturing the images like a regular digital camera would do. And laser scanning is an active data collection technology. So it's actually shooting out a laser beam. It's also a line of sight. You can't shoot a laser through walls or through concrete or anything. But it's, so it's shooting that laser beam. It's producing its own light and you get more accurate measuring with that right now. But to answer your question, I think definitely within a couple of years we're gonna see UAVs indoors, outdoors. They're gonna become flexible enough to, why open up the ceiling to look at ducts when you can have a small UAV fly up into the ceiling and map everything out for you. So I think you're gonna see a lot more functionality coming up pretty soon. So we've seen too, they had some folks that have come by our shop that have utilized in these in the solar industry. And one of the things that one of the guys talked about was the speed at which he could actually do roof surveys and do inspections. And then what kind of made him happy about it too was the fact that he did not, he was putting fewer people on roofs. And so he's putting fewer people in harm's way where there's a potential that somebody could fall and get hurt. And we had an incident last year that occurred. It was a young man, solar company out on a job here downtown, he fell off a roof and it does happen. And so that's something too that I think is a bit of an unexpected benefit is that safety factor that kind of comes into play where you can utilize drones actually, like we were talking briefly earlier to get out and actually go take a look at something and not put somebody at risk. And as we're talking about the future, it's not only fall protection, there's also confined spaces. You have areas where you're digging or small existing ducts corridors, instead of putting a person down there, the technology is evolving to where it can kind of navigate itself and work its way through some of these smaller areas that can be dangerous for people. And then also some blending too. We've done some jobs where we've actually flown routes that were dictated to us by the customer. And then they blended in 3D rendered buildings and they're not even built yet. So there's kind of that merge of technology there too where you're trying to, well, what is it going to look like when it's complete based on the information that's there on site? And that can be a selling point. If you're selling condominiums, well, what's my view gonna be? And you can see everything that's gonna be in the apartment, in the condominium, and then what's that view out in town? So as we're wrapping up here today and stuff, wanted to talk briefly, there is an event coming up on the 18th of August over at the Honolulu Country Club. It's the National Association of Women in Construction, local chapter. They're gonna be discussing emerging use of drones in the construction industry. We're gonna be doing a slight demo before this starts for the day. It's open to the public, anybody can come. It's really very timely topic and subject, like I said, with the new rule changes and then discussions on use platforms, software, and obviously some issues with liabilities in this new industry and new technology. But it's 18th of August, five to eight p.m. There'll be a dinner. You can hit the link down below for tickets, $40 for the general public. And like I said, we'll have a slight demonstration beforehand and be answering some of the questions during the evening. So feel free to come on by anybody that's involved in the construction trades or if you just wanna come by and just see where this technology's going. You're more than welcome to come out. So, yeah. I wanna thank everybody for watching today and I wanna thank Chris for Chris Bayes from Hawaiian Dredging, from coming down and just talking briefly about drones and construction in the future where we're gonna see some of this technology going. So thanks again, Chris. Thanks for having me on the show. Really appreciate it. I wanna thank everybody here at the Think Tech Hawaii crew for making this so flawless and easy for me filling in for Ted Ralston. I really do appreciate it. And check us out online, Think Tech Hawaii on YouTube, Twitter if you ever have any questions or if you wanna get in touch with us at Drone Services Hawaii. Or if you have questions for Chris, we'll forward those to him also after the show.