The use of UAVs throughout time – A Safety retrospective

Abstract

The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is growing exponentially extending the application of those principles to new areas (i.e.: construction industry, earthmoving, among others). Taking as starting point the research question “Based on scientific literature, which purposes are UAVs being used for?”, followed by a systematic literature review (SLR) and statistical analysis, it is possible to describe the actual trend on the scientific research areas of application and the identification of relevant studies that should be considered. The SLR was conducted based in all published studies related to UAVs and their application areas considering the Scopus database. At the beginning of the 2010’s the words regarding UAV were more linked to aircraft accidents, air traffic control, flight safety, collision avoidance. Then, around 2019, new applications emerge, including construction industry, architectural design, building information model, highway planning, project management, identifying new areas of applications of the UAVs, also new tools are identified to deal with the UAVs’ system model and problem formulation, in continuation of the primary method of probabilistic uncertainty used in the 2010’s.

Keywords: UAVs, downstream, Safety

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1001430