In a story that sounds like something out of an Iron Man movie, DJI has announced one of their largest commercial orders ever, delivering 1,000 new high-precision versions of their popular drones to Komatsu, a company specializing in construction and mining equipment covering everything you see at small work sites to Earth moving vehicles the size of large buildings. Komatsu is a company that harnesses modern technology to provide smart solutions for these job sites, bringing automation into the mix, called Komatsu Smart Construction.
The new DJI drones provided to Komatsu are integrated with technology from the company Skycatch, a commercial drone data company that specializes in the capture, process and analyzing of dynamic data. Known as the Skycatch Explore1 drone, one of these drones can autonomously fly over a job site to create 3D site maps and models. This data helps feed Komatsu Smart Construction’s new data service that enables robotic earth moving equipment to autonomously dig, bulldoze, and grade land according to digital construction plans.
“Conducting a site survey using a drone used to take hours. However, by implementing Explore1, users can carry out surveying quickly and easily. Now it is possible to perform drone surveying every day. Taking off, landing and flight route setting are all automated. Ground Control Points (GCPs) are no longer needed. 3D data is immediately generated and an entire construction site can be visually checked with the 3D map. The Explore1 is a true game changer for the construction site,” said Chikashi Shike, Executive Office of Smart Construction Division at Komatsu.
It is a modified version of DJI’s Matrice 100 enterprise model, and part of Skycatch’s High Precision Package that also includes an Edge1 RTK base station–a computer that processes drone images into precise 3D models. The package allows companies to create maps and point clouds, discover costly job site mistakes, and predict schedule delays, saving these companies a lot of money.
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Yet another company that sounds like Skynet, it won’t be long before a good number of construction jobs will center more around programming and analytics than around carpenters, steel workers and other hands-on positions that result in getting their hands dirty. Times change and so do careers as we evolve toward newer things.
It almost feels like you should expect to see “Stark Industries” painted on the sides of these vehicles and drones as they do their work. For now, you will have to settle with DJI, Skycatch and Komatsu. This is just be the beginning however, as this is the first time that DJI has developed a custom drone for one of their partners. You can bet that this could very quickly create a new trend, attracting the interest of all forms of industries around that world, that might be looking for a similar solution from companies like DJI.
