The initial construction area of the FCC Group was the development of the national PWDRON project, which investigates an automated infrastructure monitoring system based on drone-based linear civil works.

UAV technology (known as drones) has been, during the last few years, demonstrating its positive contribution within civil engineering, and in particular, in civil works.

Currently, there are massive data capture devices, oriented to mining and civil works that help to provide information on the environment and state of the work, facilitating job planning, estimating costs, in addition to improving processes of quality control. However, there is no standard platform (composed of aerial vehicle and data manager) that allows to use this tool in a consistent, reliable and with a repeatability in the data collection demonstrated, where possible a direct connection between the capture teams of data and visualization platforms.

Given this situation in the field of data collection in civil works, the Center for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI) of the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness has approved the PWDRON Innovation project, "Development of an automated monitoring system for infrastructures in linear civil work based on drones ", where FCC Construccion participates in a consortium with the company IDP, specialized in the fields of engineering, environment, architecture and ICT, and with HOVERING SOLUTIONS ESPAÑA, whose specialty is the development of solutions for the automation of processes through drones. The project has an approximate duration of three years (2017-2019) and the application of the pilot will be in the work located in road N340 of Cádiz and Gibraltar to Barcelona by Málaga, section “Variante de Vallirana”.     

The general objective of the PWDRON Project is the development of a centralized automated monitoring system for the execution of infrastructures in linear civil works (motorways, highways, roads, railways, railway lines and stations, earthworks in large volumes, stability of slopes and channeling networks) based on drones with advanced technological features, specifically developed within the framework of the project, as well as a new technological platform for the exchange, processing and distribution of data.

This project seeks to obtain automated data of work with a real-time monitoring, which allows to obtain three-dimensional models quickly and daily, with capture and integration of exportable data to topographic applications, design or layout and in BIM systems. The solution must contemplate a universal design, where its results are consistent and repetitive regardless of environmental conditions.

The main innovations presented by this project are:

• A change in the working philosophy on the use of drones as a tool for capturing data in civil works applications, thus reducing operating costs.
• The use of a UAV as a unique and universal tool for the automated acquisition of industrial grade data.
• The implementation of BIM methodology in a civil works, integrated with GIS technology to produce a GeoBIM model and the development of 4D-Planning in the model.

The role of FCC Construccion in the project is to establish the starting point and the definition of its conditioning factors and characteristics in line with the specifications of the linear infrastructures. Analyze the complete automated operating process to perform a final validation of the system and the adaptation of the results to the casuistry of civil engineering, and will be responsible for all aspects of implementation of the project, from the preparation of the actual application scenario to the final contrast of quality and effectiveness of the results obtained.