A Flight Simulator for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Flights Over Construction Job Sites

Abstract

In 2015, the construction had the highest rate of fatalities among all industries in the United States. Unsafe operation of construction equipment is one of the main causes of fatal incidents. Operation, management and interactions between construction equipment and construction crews should be thoroughly regulated to minimize the risk of fatal incidents on job sites. While use of most traditional construction equipment is regulated, the construction industry has struggled with regulating new, innovative and smart equipment such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that have recently been introduced to construction job sites. In this paper, collision avoidance and spatial safety theories in construction are discussed. The bases of these theories are extended to UAV operation in order to establish the first known theory on safe use and operation of UAVs in construction. Also, basic principles of UAV flights are discussed. By applying the basic principles of UAV flights and construction spatial safety theories, a UAV flight simulator in construction environments has been developed in Unity game engine. The flight simulator is designed for UAV pilots, construction managers and safety managers, and enables users to fly a UAV within a simulated environment extracted from a BIM model. This UAV flight simulator is tested in a case study of a building currently under construction. This simulator can be used to assess UAV pilots’ capabilities, test the risks of UAV flights in any construction environment, and UAV safe flight path planning.