Drones and the Future of Building Inspection Services
Overview
Innovative technology such as drones are significantly altering the landscape of building inspection services, making them safer, more efficient and more cost-effective. As demonstrated in the following sections, the drone inspection market is expected to hit $24 billion by 2025, with drones expected to inspect over a million buildings by 2022.
Reduced Costs and Improved Efficiency
Traditional building inspections are costly, time-consuming and require considerable human resources. In contrast, drone inspections can save up to 50-75% of these costs and significantly speed up the process. According to Unmanned Aerial Online, a drone inspection takes roughly a third of the time as a traditional inspection. The same report estimates that drones are set to inspect over a million buildings annually by 2022, thereby highlighting the enormous potential of this market.
Safety Enhancements
Safety is a prominent concern in the building inspection industry due to the often-perilous nature of physical inspections. Drones can drastically reduce these risks. According to PwC, drone usage in inspections can lead to a 55% reduction in the time workers spend in hazardous environments. Indeed, the use of drones can virtually eliminate the need for workers to physically access dangerous inspection points, resulting in safer practices.
Greater Accessibility and Detailed Output
The use of drones for inspections can offer superior results, providing highly detailed and comprehensive data, thus altering the quality of inspections. For instance, a traditional visual inspection might miss hairline fractures or imperfections that a drone equipped with specialized sensors can easily detect. It's projected that using drones for inspections can increase data accuracy by up to 85%, thus making findings more reliable and reducing oversight risks dramatically.
Key Takeaways
- Drones can save up to 75% of building inspection costs and significantly speed up the inspection process.
- Usage of drones in inspections can lead to a 55% reduction in the time workers spend in hazardous environments.
- Using drones for inspections can lead to an 85% increase in data accuracy.
- The drone inspection market is expected to reach $24 billion by 2025.
Introducing 3Laws Robotics
At the forefront of harnessing drone technology for building inspections is 3Laws Robotics, a company developing innovative software to enhance safety and reliability for robotics systems. With a focus on addressing the challenge of certification, a crucial pain point for robotics companies, their leading software, 3Laws Supervisor, simplifies the process.
Through the use of Control Barrier Functions (CBFs), a technology developed at Caltech that harnesses mathematically provable safety, our software offers robust safety features and proof of system integrity, potentially easing the certification path.
3Laws has several demonstrated use cases, showing how it can positively impact diverse sectors. In warehouse automation, 3Laws enabled a customer to achieve a 40% efficiency gain with a six-month payback period. Our solutions aid in the safe and uninterrupted operation of robots in proximity to humans and dynamic environments.
3Laws Robotics does not only focus on safety but also improves operational efficiency, minimizing downtime caused by unnecessary e-stops or collisions. Our real-time guardrails for autonomy stacks enable robots to operate closer to their peak capabilities while maintaining safety.
Our adaptable software can work with a wide range of platforms like mobile robots, cars, drones, and manipulators. The software is compatible with popular robotics middleware such as ROS and ROS2. At 3Laws, we believe in providing a proactive approach to safety, offering a dynamic, predictive solution that can be safety certified for ISO 3691-4 and ISO 26262. We are committed to unlocking the full potential of robotics, bridging the gap between traditional methods and next-generation safety solutions.