Quadcopter Drones as a Tool for Monitoring and Reporting Progress in Building Construction Stages. Case Study: Enugu Metropolis Nigeria

The digital revolution faced by the construction industries at this time is a shift in the use of technologies, aiming to increase productivity, efficiency, value, quality, sustainability and reduce lifecycle cost. The aim of this study is “to invest in the use of Drones (Quadcopter) as a tool for smart monitoring and reporting building construction stages in Enugu Metropolis Nigeria †. In order to actualize this aim, the following objectives were postulated: to ascertain the level of adoption of drones in the digitalization of construction by stakeholders in building project monitoring; the Limitations of adopting digitalization with drones by stakeholders in the building construction industry, and Effect of Drone adoption on project delivery process. The hypothesis was formulated – Hnull: The use of drones will not fast-trackthe project delivery process. WTC Estate and Devine Hectares Estate in Enugu State Nigeria were used during site observations. The research design adopted a descriptive survey and the population under study was 612 the sample size of 242 was determined using Taro Yamane Formula for the known population. Questionnaires and Drone picture/Video was also used to collect data for observation on site. However, 51(21%) of the professionals used drones while 191 (76%) did not, thereby rating the adoption among Stakeholders low. The hypothesis tested revealed that the significant value (p=0.0019) of the statistic is less than 0.05, the null hypothesis was rejected. However, the use of drones to fast-track the project delivery process was accepted. In conclusion, the adoption of drones in Nigeria is encouraged since data collected from drones could be used to evaluate ongoing construction progress