Drone Technology in Architecture, Engineering and Construction

CHAPTER 2A Paradigm Shift in Viewing the World

Drones have been in the public lexicon for decades. As military tools, drones have been a focus of research and development for much longer. The earliest unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) date back to the 1800s when unmanned balloons with explosives were used for military operations. During WWI and WWII, radio controlled unmanned aircraft were developed for a variety of purposes. What we think of as modern drones were largely developed in warfare in the mid 1980s. During this same time, the industry of hobby radio-controlled aircraft was growing in popularity, and in the 1990s radio-controlled quadcopters and miniature UAVs (drones) began coming to market.

Over the next 15–30 years, public sector drones slowly became cheaper and more widely available. At the same time, several other consumer technologies were quickly advancing. In particular, the progression of drone technology coincided with the digital camera revolution (the first consumer digital camera was released in 1994). The convergence of these two emerging technologies during the early 2000s and into the early 2010s resulted in cheaper and more reliable drones with payloads that were higher quality, more varied, smaller, and lighter. As this happened, drones quickly gained user bases in professional settings ranging from agriculture, to data and image collection, to natural resource monitoring.

Consumers and professionals alike were suddenly exposed to a new way of viewing ...