Today’s project managers face a variety of challenges in their work every day, from ensuring speed and efficiency to keeping up with a complex and ever-changing regulatory landscape, to preventing costly oversights. With so much on their plate, it’s of the utmost importance that these project managers be able to take advantage of the new and innovative technologies that can drive value across the project.
One example of such a technology is unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The hype surrounding UAVs is growing louder across a host of industry settings, but land surveying is one area where that hype is certainly justified. In this post, we’ll take a closer look at several of the ways that UAVs can benefit land surveying projects.
1. Increase speed of surveying
One of the chief drawbacks of traditional surveying methods is the amount of time they can take to complete. This should be a serious area of concern for project managers, because the more time a project spends in the surveying stage, the longer it will take for the project to begin the more tangible phases.
UAVs can address this issue by dramatically speeding up the initial project assessment and surveying components. By covering as much 6 square miles in a single day, and delivering data that can be turned around and ready for the project team to use in as little as 24 hours, UAVs can essentially remove land surveying as a source of roadblocks on a project.
2. Increase worker safety
There’s no denying that land surveying isn’t always the safest occupation that a worker might engage in. When land surveyors have to cross difficult terrain in order to gather the data they need, it doesn’t just create a source of delays—it also puts those workers at risk of serious injury.
For project managers, doing everything they can to ensure worker safety isn’t just the right thing to do. It also makes sense from a business perspective, as accidents are both costly and time-consuming. With UAVs, surveyors can gather data about difficult terrain without actually having to cross that terrain. In fact, they can do everything their job requires without ever having to leave a designated safe work location.
3. Increase accuracy
Fast land surveying doesn’t help much unless it’s also accurate. Mistakes at the land surveying stage can lead to very costly and time-consuming issues later on in the project, so it’s important that you get things right the first time.
Today’s UAVs can be attached with the latest in imaging technology. This includes high-resolution cameras that are capable of capturing images with 1 cm of accuracy. When combined with the unique capabilities of UAVs to observe terrain from all angles and proximities—even in the case of difficult-to-reach terrain—the result is detailed, accurate images that can be used to support high-quality project work.
Final thoughts
In truth, this post is only able to scratch the surface of the potential benefits of using UAVs for land surveying projects. This powerful new technology is only limited by the skill and creativity of the people using it, so it's important that project managers adopt it now in order to start maximizing its advantages.
Thoughts