I spent most of the morning doing some Spring cleaning. Early/Late? I can’t tell. It’s stuff that has been on my to-do list for at least several months, maybe even a year ago. I did the same most of yesterday. Suffice to say, I’m a little tired.
A few weeks ago I received a couple of emails, where a company was pitching some kind of drone service for construction professionals. I wasn’t really interested.
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Some of the drone services available are beyond the scope of individual users, and outside what I’m interested in covering.
But, the topic is still quite interesting. There is great potential in the technology that exists, and one of these days there’s bound to be a “that’s actually really useful” idea that a company comes out with.
In the meantime, let’s have a little fun imagining what drones could do.
In 5 years, there will be personal drones that can…
Bring me my safety goggles and hearing protection. I keep multiple sets and sometimes I still can’t find anything!
Aim a worklight exactly where I need it to. “Alexa, turn the flashlight 5 degrees left.”
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Okay, your turn. What ideas do you have? Wants? Needs? Take a break, and put your imagination to work. These ideas don’t have to be practical, they can be silly to. As in:
In 5 years, there will be personal drones that can… keep me cool when I work outside in the summer.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to fantasize about having a personal drone that automagically makes or brings me lunch. Star Trek-style Replicators would be amazing. “Alexa, give me a cheeseburger.”
Scott
… inspect the roof after the last wind storm.
…recaulk that crack that would require me to get out the ladder.
…deliver the wasp killer from the safety and comfort of indoors.
… put up/take down those pesky holiday lights.
Farid
My neighbor in an owner of a roof top inspection service. They often do business with investment companies and often deal with large projects. After seeing my simple drone, he went out and bought 10 DJI drones with HD cameras for use at work. Form what he is telling me, it has made their job a lot easier in some situations, not to mention the footage they show to clients who are usually thousands of miles away from the actual property.
Steve
All the things the first guy said plus bring me a beer.
tim Rowledge
The inspection and pest-spray stuff is eminently doable today but caulking is one of those things requiring application of force. That’s quite hard to do with a small flying thing. I don’t see drones as helping with nailing roof sheathing very soon.
Tim
Technically putting an aerosol spray in a drone counts as weaponizing it which is a pretty bad idea from a legal standpoint.
Chris
Not at all. You just need FAA Part 137 certification.
Jim Felt
Yeah. Like that’s keeping dumbass operators away from airport flight paths.
And that’s already a major concern. Not to mention our military has had to ground most all of their Chinese made drones because they are more then capable of reporting to their makers exactly where they are and to some degree what they shooting.
@the law of unintended consequences.
Jim Felt
What “they’re” shooting.
I blame Siri for this. As usual.
Tim
Most likely purposes of “drones” on a jobsite will be as lights, networking devices, wireless speakers, inspection cameras (which we already do) and running cabling in certain areas. (Have done this as well.)
Ray D
Great. After a day of tiling kitchen splashback, I’m longing for a a drone that does all that, from measuring, cutting, applying adhesive, tiling, grouting and sealing.
I’ll happily keep the drone battery recharged and topped up with coffee if needs be.
MacLean
Who said anything about flying? You could easily park a tracked drone on a roof to lay three tab shingles. Add in an integrated elevator/hopper on the edge of the roof to feed it materials. They already have robots for masonry work. Fully automated lawn mowers…edgers…blowers. Small scale TBMs with integrated plastic printers doing sprinkler and electric pipe…sewer…imagine printing a drain field without ever disturbing the soil? Auto mechanics…home automation based garage bot that can change oil, rotate tires…plug in the charger. Possibilities are endless.
The yeti
A drone with lasers. Would always be able find high or low point on a lot. Always be able to lay a clear straight line from above or behind. Laser drones i say
Farid
you are not far off. Probably can be adapted now. Some of the most recent models use Time-of-flight lasers to measure height above ground. So, it is really a matter of software to allow it to scan an area and give you a 3D contour. My guess is someone is already working on it.
Jonny B.
My company’s drone pilots have LIDAR equipped drones that are able to survey large areas more easily than standard methods. It’s also possible to complete imagery based surveys that, while not quite as accurate, are significantly cheaper and faster.
Justin
Imagery based survey is the way to go, it is as accurate as you want it to be depending on the quality and quantity of you ground control points. Setting these points require survey equipment but when you are on a job site equipped with GPS obtaining a topographic survey can take an hour instead of days. Applications such as Pix4D have come a long way
Yadda
Blow/clean out the gutters!
Rx9
The iRobot Looj is a gutter cleaning robot that has been out for a while now.
Peter Hosking
Let’s go further , tethered drone , lifting 60kgs in a clearer site lifting area
This will be huge
Cr8on
Had a roofing sub show up with a DJI Phantom to bid a job. If I recall his bid was right in line with others that climbed up and measured.
I envision the day drones becoming much more AI but still as costly as today… Motors, props, frame, batteries, control boards all will still fetch a premium but certainly will be able to do much more user friendly tasks than todays versions.
Mike
A drone that would monitor you as you worked alone outside. If you fell or were hurt the done could obtain help either automatically or when commanded to call 911.
Stuart
Hmm, maybe that’s actually something that a “smartphone-connected” device could do.
Or if in a remote area, maybe a drone could be programmed to fly to a higher signal area for a transmission.
A W
Off topic slightly, but realize that any for profit use of a drone is regulated by the FAA (14 CFR 107).
You need to check max altitudes for your area at the link below, stay within line of sight of the drone, and and actively look out for manned aircraft.
https://faa.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=9c2e4406710048e19806ebf6a06754ad
Our local airport has had two recent near mid air collisions between drones and manned aircraft.
In one case, a construction worker had access to a medium UAV to inspect a recently completed bridge and ended up cutting off a police helicopter that was on final approach to the runway. In another case, a drone was hanging out at 800′ above the ground where ATC was sending traffic. State Police found the first operator, but weren’t able to catch the second one.
Samr
I just want a cheap drone that can drop my fishing lure or bait exactly where I want it every time, so I don’t have to worry about snagging it in a tree or on a log or something. Also it would really increase my casting distance…. I know this technology exists, but not on the cheap/readily-available and task-specific scale.
Tools and fishing are sister (brother?) hobbies right?
Koko The Talking Ape
I suppose a drone could drop a golf ball right on the putting green, instead of that fiddly business with the clubs. No sarcasm intended; I don’t golf or fish.
JoeM
I hate to say it… but I think there’s some Arduino hacks that people have added to their DJI Phantom drones to do EXACTLY these things. Little Arduino Nano with a Bluetooth shield onboard, plus a small servo-activated claw/hook, connects to a control on a smart device. Pilot the device to the location you want, hit the button on screen, the controller hanging from the drone releases the claw, and drops the lure in the water for you. Then you just pilot the drone back to you, and pick up your fishing rod.
Check Instructables.com for a Lure Drop for a Drone. Or YouTube. I’m a little too tired to go hunting myself right now. But I think you already have what you’re asking about out there already. I THINK. I admit I’m very sleepy right now, and could easily be mistaken in what I saw.
fred
If we had a drone that could take the place of a survey crew that would be something. It could fly overhead with total station capabilities, sight in on benchmarks then do the rest. Boy would the land surveyors be amazed. I’m not sure how it would deal with foliage and other obstructions that might impede its lines of sight – but that’s for others to figure out.
Justin
One day at work so I performed two aerial surveys. On both of them I used the same targets, about 15 of them for a survey of a pit we were working on. I already had the robotic total station set up so I shot the points in with that as well as GPS. In my processing of the surfaces there was very little difference in the accuracy of the surfaces, both instances were plus or minus half a tenth. I don’t think we are there yet but definitely are heading in the right direction.
John Banister
Exchange power tool batteries. Change its own batteries. Bring that one tool I forgot. Carry a signal booster to the ideal location. It seems to me that a utility drone will need gecko feet in addition to flying ability. A drone carrying a battery powered winch (having a large gear reduction) and helping it anchor to an otherwise inaccessible lifting point is something that could happen.
Kevin
A drone could provide a ‘sky hook’. But then asking the apprentice to fetch a sky hook would not be a wild goose chase. Actually a drone could chase wild geese to keep them and their droppings off a property.
JoeM
What about a large industrial drone (not the little/mid-sized DJI ones, the bigger film camera heavy class) with a fully adaptable bottom payload, and smartphone control tracking. That way it acts as both a courier drone, and a safety/inspection drone for large or small projects.
Onboard camera/scanner to the drone tracks QR tags on items you lay out on the worksite. Then a person goes to the work area they’re going for, has a look at what needs doing, then just puts an order in to the drone or the foreman’s tablet, for what they need, and the drone, or a drone and its companions, simply take off, scan the site for the codes, picks them up, and flies directly to the person holding the original device that made the request. Use small, powerful drones for simple deliveries like batteries, for example. One drone picks up a bag of charged batteries, and flies up next to the person to take a fresh battery and fly away, another drone comes with an empty bag marked “Used Batteries” and acts like the dead battery collector throughout the site. When it gets too heavy to carry, it flies back to the battery area to drop off the used batteries, and pick up a fresh bag to collect batteries with.
More Nails? More Screws? Sign or blinking light that signals a lunch break? Hell, big drones that just fly to the floor you’re on carrying nothing but Drywall, day in and day out. Or roofing shingles, solar panels, or bricks.
As to Caulking or Adhesive… Haven’t we made strides in battery powered dispensers and light Lithium Ion batteries lately? Couldn’t we achieve a descent job of just strapping a dispenser to the legs or frame of an already-working drone and a little mechanical add-on that pulls the trigger for us? Then applying these products would be about as complex as getting close enough to the application area. And most well-trained drone pilots can do that easily. Imagine if it was being done by an AI that didn’t have the programming to allow it to twitch like the human hand does. Just fly a certain distance away from the edge of the window/door/target area, and activate the trigger, then follow the line defined by the program.
As to fans… Bonus to how most drones fly these days… they’d really just have to fly a foot or so above your head, and they’re a fan unto themselves. If they run low, summon a backup. Easy cooling.
I honestly can’t say Drones will ever be capable of replacing Human craftsmanship, but I do look forward to the day they act as helpers to increase safety and security for those craftsmen we have already.
Jeremiah
I was thinking of something similar with retrieving tools or supplies from other floors or the other side of the job. I do like the thought of lifting drywall, lumber, shingles to upper levels. Maybe carrying heavy plumbing fixtures or tile up multiple levels. Carrying a steel or cast iron tub upstairs is always a challenge.
JoeM
Yeah, all of that is included. Maybe “Drill 4” isn’t with the rest of the tools, it was last reported in the hands of “Dave”, and the Drone has to go get it from “Dave” and transport it to “Kenny” on the ground floor?
We just have to think outside the box when we think “Drone”, that’s all. You have to go back to episodes of the original Mythbusters to really see a better idea of what we can deal with. There’s the DJI Phantom that we’ve seen on TV and on Big Bang Theory that looks like a small toy with remote control. Then there’s the more advanced DJI Inspire series that has a central body, and the 4 arms raise up from being feet, to being arms in the air, and it’s capable of much more power than the Phantom. Then there’s the Industrial grade ones they use in Movies, with 8 Arms, that spin at insane, basically lethal, speeds, and can lift several hundred pounds at a time.
And that’s just the AIRBORNE Drones. There’s also Arm/Track bots like Bomb Squads use, Drone Boats, an Survey Drone Planes. When we’re talking “Construction” it’s not impossible to imagine a simple program doing the math for every item, whether that’s a battery, or a sheet of drywall, or, yes, EXTREMELY heavy Tubs, and Plumbing, that just need to get from A to B. Then it’s just a matter of registering the right QR codes to the right items in the Foreman’s computer/tablet/whatever, and when one of these items is requested, the right number of the right sized drones are sent to grab each hold point, and lift it to where it needs to go. How many does it take? Obviously the software will keep track of the description and do the math for size and weight, then tell the Foreman where to put the right kind of grabber, and how many. Throughout the day, the Foreman just needs to tag the next one in the pile. When some Drones take it away, he tags the next, and the next, and so on. If something weighs 1200 pounds, and one LARGE drone can handle 800 pounds of lift, the software would probably assign two-to-four tags to that item, and when it’s requested, send 4 drones to the specific coded grabbers on the item, so there’s no question it’s safely getting to where it’s going.
Or, if we’re talking Basement/First Floor stuff, flying drones can just as easily lift an item onto some track drones that can go up and down limited steps, and deliver the supplies to the team there.
We have to think outside the box when we’re talking “Drones” here. There are a lot of types, and using them for construction/DIY/OUR Uses would only require one tweak to the current generation of them: Heavy Impact Resistance. The remote control system is easily replaced by software on a mobile device, and that’s as easy to replace as an Android software App or Patch. The major tool makers are already making Tool Inventory and Connectivity software based off Bluetooth. It’s not a big leap to add in GPS and WiFi code to those apps to auto-control drones.
I like this topic! Really gets the ideas flowing! And there’s so many fun ideas everyone is coming up with!
SiSiX
A tracked “drone”, that could handle the weight of say a dozen sheets of drywall, and handle at least a single flight of stairs (and if it could handle a turn on said stairs…) would be something that could revolutionize a lot of construction sites, even for small contractors. How many times have you seen contractors that had to have a 2nd guy/gal on ‘just’ to carry stuff. Even a $20k tracked “mule” that could handle a dirt construction site that was “walkable” and last for a day might open up some new ways of working.
nick
for Solar PV installers…a drone that would map out a prospective clients roof or hillside, import into a program that would snap a virtual panel matrix on it. Print out a copy for the planning dept. Sharable and easy to modify panel layout via computer once mapping is imported.
for foundation footings… drone that projects multiple laser lines, wont interfere with backhoe driving over spray painted dirt.
thats all i got.
EastBayGrease
A drone mixed with a paint sprayer could zip back and forth on the exterior of a house, keep perfecting distance from wall and maintaining a consistent overlap. It could probably shoot an entire house in under an hour…. Why not the inside too?
D
Great idea that
ktash
I’d like to see it scrape the loose paint! Worst part of the job.
ktash
Oh, and mask off the windows, etc. This would all be great!
glenn
Fetch morning tea or lunch?
dandLyons
My first thought was a flying first aid kit. And perhaps it might carry a flask…strictly for medicinal purposes of course.
Dean in Des Moines
Spot the safety inspector!
ktash
Hopefully, the safety inspector doesn’t have one to spot you first 🙁
Steve
All the things the first guy said plus bring me a beer.
Dean in Des Moines
Fetch me a donut!
Rx9
I want to see drones with better radiation hardening for use in nuclear applications. To me, it was infuriating to see Japan, a world leader in robotics, send humans out in the immediate aftermath of Fukushima to do what is clearly the job of robots.
Nathan L
Good point, that
Wayne
Any job that a stoner helper shows up late for, regularly, or just otherwise isn’t worth his crappy pay will likely be replaced by a walking/wheeled/tracked smart machine. Carrying stuff? Moving stuff in a hand truck or wheelbarrow? Moving tools & materials off of or onto your truck? Any of the previous up a ladder or stairs? Holding one end of material while you’re working the other?
How about crawler types that’ll go up trees to trim them? Place holiday decorations at a mall? Wash windows, high rise or residential?
How about tire dealers – pull the car in and let the “bay” lift the vehicle, pull off the wheels, pull the tires off, place new ones, balance and replace, tighten lugs.
Municipal workers leaning on shovels? Can’t a machine clean & fill potholes 24/365 without OT or pensions?
Coal miners are just the tip of the soon-to-be-obsolete-jobs list. Drone/robot programming &/or repair – that’s going to be the field of the future.
Joe
Possible laser measuring, possible reception boost (added height) ..I don’t see drones doing anything but videos. If amazon ever used drones like they said they want, there packages would just be intercepted and kept.
I’m no expert but isn’t 10mph winds too much for a drone to handle ? The liability of getting hurt by a drone would be staggering….
Now if your talking Robots….I’m all in
Jim Felt
I’m guessing Jeff Bezos and his arch tech nemesis Steve Jobs’ old company are both more then hard at work trying to scale 3D printers into mass market responses to consumer use. Not the slow mo or engineering prototyping models of today.
But rather the magic units of our kids’ future. One to a consumer.
Company’s will market and design material around what’s “printable” and never look back.
Grady
Alexa, please bring me a roll of toilet paper!
Sorry but it had to be said.
Jim Sutter - (Rock Hound)
In 5 years, I want a drone that will scare the rabbits, deer, and crows out of my garden.
JonBoy
Inspect ducting in attic or crawl spaces.
Bring me tools in attic or crawl spaces.
glenn
I really believe that drones in the work place in my lifetime ( between now and another, hopefully, 10-20 or so,)………………. is all just pie in the sky………………………………..