Literature Review on Visual Construction Progress Monitoring Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Due to the complexity and dynamism that characterize construction activities, the execution of work packages as planned requires a systematic monitoring and control of their operations and progress. However, the most common practices for construction progress monitoring are still based on individual observations and often still rely on textbased documentation. In order to improve the collaboration and transparency of this process, studies highlight applications of visual data, such as photographs, videos, 3D and 4D models. Due to the large number of publications that address the use of visual data for construction progress monitoring, and the growing use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), the objective of this work is to present a systematic literature review concerning the use of UAVs as a tool for aiding construction progress monitoring. For that purpose, a literature review was carried out for papers dated from 2008 to 2018 using Scopus database. The findings indicated that the development of progress monitoring automated systems, the use of 3D as-built point cloud models and Building Information Modeling are the most frequently discussed subjects within the papers surveyed. Also, a gap was identified regarding the lack of studies that effectively integrate the visual monitoring with the construction management systems.