Why drones will save lives and dollars

Why drones will save lives and dollarsUsing drones for aerial photography of properties is already changing the real estate game, but the opportunities in construction are even greater, says Dr Catherine Ball.An environmental scientist at the forefront of drone research in Australia, Ball’s breakthrough work is changing how business and government operate.”Drones will be as popular as the smart phone in five years, and everyone will have a wrist-watch sized one for personal use,” she says.”Drones will be used for 3D selfies, for live video recording straight to the internet, and offer new avenues for marketing and advertising products.”However, I’m passionate about the idea of drones for humanity – how we can apply drone technology to save lives and create safer communities.”Ball says drones deployed in war zones can drop up to two tonnes of food at one go, while low-cost drones can be critical in disaster management.”When drone technology is available after an extreme weather event like a cyclone, it can help disaster management teams and first responders understand if airports are safe, where infrastructure has been damaged and where other dangers lie,” she says.”While military drones look for insurgents in Afghanistan, I’ve worked with scientists to track turtles off the coast of Western Australia.”On the building site, the application of drones is seemingly endless.Ball says a number of mining and construction companies in Australia are using drones to monitor sites, scope out new projects, identify structural problems and communicate better through accurate plans and data. Drones are also being used to help design and sell off-the-plan apartments and are proving valuable in asset management.”Drones can help the industry take the people out of the loop – and in doing so remove the O&HS risk and save money,” Ball explains.”Drones are already spray painting, shifting and lifting, checking nuts and bolts – and all of this is preferable to having people on ropes. The health and safety benefits alone are huge, and a big driver for the construction industry.”Construction milestones can be reported more easily than ever before, with drone surveys able to trigger software that can analyse progress, feed data into 3D models, generate reports and invoice clients automatically.”Data gathered from drones can be used to 3D-model for planning purposes. Planning applications with 3D walkthroughs will engage communities at the earliest stages of a project, help them gain an understanding of what a development will look like,” Ball says.It will also short-circuit NIMBYism.”When you have a community that is worried a development will restrict natural light, you can prove it won’t with the help of a drone.”The technology is evolving rapidly, and the costs are coming down too, with 1000 drones able to be purchased for the same cost as one helicopter.Meanwhile, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, responsible for developing emerging technologies in the US, has recently designed a drone that “looks like a hummingbird or a Tamagochi”.Ball is currently in talks with a number of schools about how Australia can set up ‘drone academies’.”It’s important that the drone industry develops around principles of safety and ethics, rather than on ‘gamification’ – and that it leads on best practice,” she says.Drones may be helping Pokémon Go fans catch those hard-to-reach characters, but the real opportunities beyond gaming, marketing and advertising are far reaching. Expect drones to prove indispensable for future-thinking companies looking to maintain a competitive edge.More than 6 delegates at this year’s SOLD OUT event will dive deep into the world of new and innovative technologies when Dr Catherine Ball and Commonwealth Bank’s head of innovation, Tiziana Bianco, share their insights at The Property Congress from 20-22 October 2016. www.thepropertycongress.com.au