McCarthy Building Companies expands drone programme
Missouri-based national construction firm McCarthy Building Companies is partnering with commercial drone technology provider PrecisionHawk to expand and refine its drone programme. McCarthy aims to develop custom software and algorithms using PrecisionHawk's open architecture to create an end-to-end solution that employs aerial intelligence to increase construction industry capabilities. Immediate projects include the use of ground penetrating radar data to reduce survey times and augmented reality techniques for more accurate information visualisation.

The oldest privately held national construction company in the United States, McCarthy Building Companies has announced its collaboration with PrecisionHawk, a provider of enterprise-grade, commercial drone technology. Through this partnership, McCarthy aims to scale its growing drone program. Using PrecisionHawk’s open software architecture, the two companies will develop custom software and algorithms, to boost capabilities of the construction industry using aerial intelligence.

McCarthy will deploy several near-term initiatives, including:

Automatically generating as-built 3D/4D BIM models from photogrammetry data captured by drones on job sites

Applying Ground Penetrating Radar data to provide more accurate information to critical construction projects while reducing survey times

Implementing augmented reality techniques for more accurate information visualization.

“It is our aim to build a process that can automatically generate as-built 3D models with photogrammetry data and integrate those models across all phases of a project from early in the design phase through construction completion and turnover,” said McKenzie Lewis, McCarthy field solutions manager. “As drones become an increasingly important technology tool in our process, PrecisionHawk brings experienced and sophisticated development and deployment solutions that can scale with our business needs.”

A number of years ago, McCarthy began its evaluation of how enterprise drone programs can increase efficiency, improve safety, reduce risk, and ultimately provide value for clients across all of its job sites. The company’s test of drone platforms and aerial stitching software showed that drones improve data analysis on complex building projects.

“For the enterprise, we know the first step to building a drone program is simply proving the value of the technology. But to truly be an industry pioneer, you need to think beyond the ability to fly a drone or create a map,” said Jeffrey Freund, VP construction services at PrecisionHawk. “McCarthy understands that to lead the industry in photogrammetry technology means integrating an entire platform, which includes rapid data capture, intelligence and visualization, into the enterprise workflow. We are excited to bring our expertise in scaling a drone program to support their efforts.”