Skycatch and Komatsu Team Up for Smarter Construction Using Drones

Focusing on making the High Precision Package (HPP) on the construction, mining and quarry sites available to businesses Skycatch and Komatsu Australia have formed a partnership as part of a move to boost project efficiency across its job sites in Oceana.

Also known as Komatsu’s Everyday Drone Solution, HPP is a key component to the Smart Construction workflow- a drone data platform, to construction, mining and quarry sites. It contributes significantly to OEM’s Smart Construction workflow, which covers the critical steps in a project’s development, from initial site survey, design and professional consultancy, through to final completion.

It contains the Explore1 high precision UAV, the Edge1 integrated GNSS base station and edge compute module, and the Viewer, an online data visualization and analysis tool, all packaged into a commercial grade kit. The companies said that Everyday Drone enables a user to experience “industry-leading time to data” without needing Ground Control Points (GCP). It also has the ability to seamlessly integrate precision aerial data into the Smart Construction workflow.

While in common construction workflows the time to data using traditional surveying methods could take weeks until project stakeholders can view or analyse the job-site data, with the Edge1, customers can leverage a seamless GCP-free workflow that can delivers sub 50mm accurate data, in arbitrary or local coordinate systems within 30 minutes.

Aaron Marsh, national technology solution expert manager at Komatsu Australia, commented: “We are now using the Everyday Drone at the start of projects to collect whole site information for pre-tender and bidding capability, comparing against 3D design surface to provide fleet and project managers’ real, accurate information viewed in the Smart Construction Application.”

Customers in Australia have already used the solution and have been out to test the receptiveness of a drone solution in the market, originally in civil construction and then in quarry sites.

Skycatch founder and CEO Christian Sanz added: “Skycatch is proud to offer a better way of accessing precision data on-site. With traditional methods, the solutions are piecemeal, cumbersome, and time-consuming. With traditional methods [of accessing data], the solutions are piecemeal, cumbersome and time-consuming. Now, customers are able to make informed decisions about changes to what was planned and what is actually happening on site in near real-time, ultimately providing greater productivity, increased profit and reducing project risk from beginning to end.”

Marsh added, “Skycatch’s ability to provide near real-time data throughout the entire project is vital, and being able to deliver that to the customer, supervisor and give project teams the ability to make decisions throughout the project easily with usable, accurate data is key to the success of the project as a whole, not just in siloed environments is priceless.”

James Mackenzie, national remote support manager at Komatsu Australia, said some customers in Australia have already experienced the benefits of the Everyday Drone solution. In order to test the receptiveness of a drone solution in the market, Komatsu went initially in civil construction and then expanding to quarry sites. Mackenzie said he was able to survey six quarries in five days for different customers, post-processed in the cloud, receiving the data back the next day.