CHALLENGES AND BARRIERS FOR UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE (UAV) IMPLEMENTATION IN MALAYSIAN INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS

Abstract

The usage of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) in infrastructure projects has inclined drastic recently due to its benefits. However, there is a slowness in transition from conventional construction approach to new innovation. Besides, there are lots of issues in current practices such as cost overrun, dangerous, delay of time completion and lack of an overall comprehensive scientific system. Furthermore, although there was high level of awareness on the advantages of using UAVs, the Malaysian construction industry are still reluctant for the changes. In response, to overcome issues that the construction industry faces, such as infrastructure projects thus, this study aims to develop a conceptual framework for promoting the applications of UAV in Malaysia infrastructure projects. The methods adopted in this researchinclude explanatory sequential research methods. For instance, questionnaire surveys and interviews are used to collect quantitative and qualitative data, respectively. As a result, the current application of UAV in Malaysian infrastructure projects in term of monitoring and inspection have similar challenges and barriers to those identified by previous researchers, but there are also some new challenges that have arisen, such as the need for education among contractors and guidelines on autonomous UAV. Besides that, a refined conceptual framework of the challenges and barriers of UAV adoption in Malaysia infrastructure projects were mainly contributed by the restrictive regulatory environment and industry point of view. For example, the privacy issues and guidelines on autonomous UAV and the industry lack of confidence in the adoption of UAV and education on the adoption of the UAV. In addition, it offers some solutions for the issues that have been revealed in the preliminary conceptual framework for the challenges on UAV adoption in Malaysia infrastructure projects. For instance, amaze the contractor with the final data from the UAV. Lastly, the identify solution served as a reference for other Malaysian construction stakeholders that have not used UAVs before. The recommendations for future scholarly research include the roles of UAV technology with other technologies such as Artificial Intelligent (AI) or integration of data with other software.