Qualitative Assessment of Indirect Risks Associated with Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Flights over Construction Job Sites

Abstract

Over the past decade, construction companies have been using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) extensively as a tool for data collection. While UAVs are being used on construction job sites on daily basis, there is no comprehensive quantitative method to measure the risks of flying UAVs over a specific area on a job site. Despite some work in quantifying direct risk of UAV flights, indirect risks of flying UAVs have been completely ignored. This paper presents a model for measuring indirect risks of UAV flights that are primarily associated with proximity between construction workers and UAVs. The proposed model is applied to a case study, using Monte Carlo simulation, and the results show the applicability of the model to a construction job site environment.