Eye in the sky boost for Balfour Beatty

Balfour Beatty, the international infrastructure group is utilising UAVs, including the recently-released DJI Phantom 4 RTK, to enhance safety, increase efficiency, gather data faster, improve asset productivity and gain high-accuracy results.

The company turned to drone expert Heliguy as its preferred supplier, with the award-winning North East England UAV firm providing a comprehensive package of equipment and support. Balfour Beatty praised Heliguy for its ‘industry-recognised expertise, effective communication and wide-ranging services’.

“Drones are a great tool to deliver the results safely, quickly and accurately. They remove people from harm’s way, which is a big plus for us, and they give the project team and clients a unique view on the progress of a project that you couldn’t get from the ground,” says Craig Matthews, Principal UAS Manager for Balfour Beatty.

Recently, Heliguy visited Balfour Beatty on location in The Midlands to find out how the innovative company is benefiting from drone technology, both on its M6 Smart Motorway scheme and on other construction and infrastructure projects.

Balfour Beatty’s experienced drone pilots Craig Matthews and Wayne Hughes have also shared their verdicts on the Phantom 4 RTK, which they have been trialling during the M6 work. So far, they are pleased with its performance and the results it yields.

The project

In 2015, Balfour Beatty – in partnership with VINCI Construction – was selected to deliver a Smart Motorway package on the M4, M5 and M6, worth up to £607.4million. Among the projects was a 13.6-mile section of the M6, from Junction 2 at Coventry and Junction 4 near Coleshill, at a cost of £212million.

Once the two-year upgrade work is completed, the transformed stretch will increase capacity, reduce congestion and shorten journey times for the thousands of road users who use this network every day.

Extra capacity will be added to the motorways through the conversion of the hard shoulder to a permanent running lane. Electronic signs, operated by a regional control centre, will be installed to manage the flow of traffic in response to driving conditions.

And for Balfour Beatty, drones are playing an important role with this major M6 transformation.

Boosting safety and efficiency

Balfour Beatty is using a number of DJI drones – as supplied by Heliguy – on the M6 scheme. These are the Phantom 4 RTK, Mavic Pro, and the Inspire 1 with X5 camera

The drones are used for a number of purposes, including mapping and capturing aerial shots, and the company has found that their deployment reduces the number of hours spend onsite. First off, they are proving to be a real time-saver, especially when it comes to measuring stockpiles and earthworks at the scheme’s recycling depot at Junction 2.

Thanks to drones, the team can fly over the site and digitise the area in a fraction of the time that it would take to use traditional, on-site methods. This leads to faster data collection and increased efficiency, as Craig Matthews explains:

“Take the recycling compound for example. If we were to measure stockpiles with traditional survey tools, it would take a lot longer to measure the site and gather the data, whereas drones enable the team to do fairly rapid measurements of different types of materials and earthworks. It would take a surveyor, using traditional handheld equipment, about a day to measure the stockpiles and process the data. But using the drone, we can fly over the compound in 15 minutes and process the model in about two hours.”

Not only does this method increase efficiency, but it also dramatically improves safety – which, for Balfour Beatty, is a big plus. Matthews continues: “Drones make it safer to gain these quantities. To put it simply, drones help unbelievably with health and safety, taking people out of dangerous situations. They are fantastic tools, supplementing the work of the surveyors on-site and helping us to get out to places where boots on the ground wouldn’t necessarily be the best option. It takes people away from places where they could be in harm’s way and it means that we haven’t got people climbing over stockpiles. Instead, the drones can fly over the site and generate a model afterwards, which we can review in the office.”

Vital eyes from the sky

Drones provide a bird’s-eye view of a construction site, giving a complete snapshot of the area and offering useful insights.

Balfour Beatty carries out regular flights across the scheme, allowing the whole team to monitor and support team briefings. This is vital for a number of reasons:

• Regular progress reports
• Allows staff to monitor and record activities on-site
• Gain a better understanding of what is going on
• Identify any issues or problems a lot easier and quicker

For Wayne Hughes, these regular flights are a game-changer for the industry. “We get to see the progress as it is happening and there’s no questions – the footage captured from the drones says this is where we were at this stage or that stage, and this is where we are now. This is beneficial for the customer, stakeholders and the staff.”

Verdict on the DJI Phantom 4 RTK

As part of the scheme, Balfour Beatty has been trialling the Phantom 4 RTK provided by Heliguy. The next-gen mapping drone was released towards the end of last year and was designed to use RTK processing to produce highly accurate aerial maps. Wayne Hughes, Principal UAS Pilot at Balfour Beatty, is impressed with results. “The RTK is very good. It provides greater flight safety due to the stability it offers and provides more accurate ground-sensor data. We have achieved some very encouraging figures.”

In addition to the RTK unit, the Phantom 4 RTK also uses a redundant GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) module that provides additional flight stability when flying in dense regions with poor RTK signal.

The RTK module is integrated directly with the drone to provide centimetre-level accuracy for stable flight and accurately georeferenced imagery.

A new TimeSync system was added to continually align the flight controller, camera and RTK module – ensuring each photo uses the most accurate metadata and fixes the positioning data to the centre of the CMOS sensor.

The Phantom 4 RTK also has the ability to connect to the D-RTK 2 Mobile Station (pictured below), NTRIP (Network Transport of RTCM via Internet Protocol), or store the satellite observation data to be used for PPK.

Top performer

Matthews agrees that the Phantom 4 RTK is a great piece of kit. “When it is paired with the base station we are achieving a rock-solid, stable flight and nice accurate models. The battery life is exceptional and it produces high-resolution images.”

When it comes to mapping the site, Balfour Beatty has merged the old with the new, complementing the traditional method of laying ground control points with the Phantom 4 RTK to collect the data.

Ground control points – or GCPs as they are known – are marked points on the ground that have a known geographic location. However, laying out a large number of these markers can be time-consuming. But the Phantom 4 RTK changes all of this, says Hughes: “Thanks to the Phantom 4 RTK, less GCPs need to be put out compared to traditional methods. This reduction makes it safer for the staff who normally put them out.”

DJI has also recently released DJI Terra – a new mapping software tool which is compatible with the DJI Phantom 4 RTK.

Innovation, innovation, innovation

The smart motorways project isn’t Balfour Beatty’s first involvement with drones. In fact, with innovation at its core, the company has been using UAVs since 2015 on a variety of work, from inspections to monitoring general progress, filming and PR and mapping, and today has 11 pilots in its team.

For Matthews, their use helps Balfour Beatty stay ahead of the technology curve. Indeed, drones form a large part of the company’s Innovation 2050 vision, which sets out a digital future for the infrastructure industry, based around human-free construction sites.

As part of the innovative strategy, drones will be flying overhead, scanning the site constantly, inspecting the work and using the data collected to predict and solve problems before they arise, sending instructions to robotic cranes and diggers and automated builders with no need for human involvement.

Looking ahead to the potential for Balfour to extend its drone provision, Matthews says: “I imagine that our drone programme will keep growing as we find new uses across the business.”

When it comes to drones and innovation, Hughes – who has been flying UAVs for a number of years – says he has been blown away by the rapid development of drones. In the space of a few years, unmanned aircraft have gone from hobbyists toys to major players in the world of cinematography and enterprise, serving an increasingly broad range of applications. “I have seen changes that I never thought I would see. You go back to the Inspire 1 and it doesn’t feel like we were there that long ago. But you compare that to the Phantom 4 RTK, and we’ve also used the M210 RTK, which was a dream, and we’ve come so far in such a short space of time.”

Why Heliguy?

So why did world-renowned Balfour Beatty turn to Heliguy as its drone provider? Hughes points to the company’s industry-recognised expertise and fantastic range of DJI products as important factors, but equally to its level of service: “Heliguy offers a good range of support, from the initial query, through the transaction and then advice and technical support after the purchase. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Heliguy to others in the industry – communication is easy, the advice is there and they will even ship any rental equipment you require straight to site so you can be up and running without delay.”

Matthews concurs, adding that although the cost of the equipment is falling, the quality of the equipment is increasing. “It is a no-brainer and I believe that drones will become commonplace on construction sites.”

James Willoughby is Heliguy’s Blogger and Drone Content Executive at Heliguy (https://www.heliguy.com) and this article has been reproduced with permission from the original which can be found at https://www.heliguy.com/blog/2019/04/02/balfour-beatty-benefiting-from-drones-on-m6-smart-motorway-development/. In addition, a video relating to the company’s work with Balfour Beatty can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW06HF5590o&feature=youtu.be