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Drones take on increasingly important role in land, infrastructure, and property development

Drone surveying and monitoring saves time and labour costs, and produces better data, says Matthew Cua, founder and chief executive of SkyEye Analytics

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Matthew Cua, founder and chief executive of SkyEye Analytics. Photo: Nora Tam
Yujing Liu

Drones are changing the face of construction, making land, infrastructure, and property development easier by providing builders unparalleled access to data and imagery.

With their origin in military defence, unmanned aerial vehicles – commonly now known as drones – have already made their way into people’s lives in a plethora of ways, from being used as fun around the house, to allowing backpackers to capture stunning aerial photographs and videos of their travels.

Now, they are playing a growing part in business and government, and that market is expected to soar by another US$13 billion by 2020, catching up with the retail market, according to 2016 Goldman Sachs research.

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Cua says that in the Philippines, 22 million families are living off their own land, but do not have the legal documents to prove it because previously it was too expensive to get their plots properly surveyed. Drones are now providing cheap ways of doing that. Photo: Handout
Cua says that in the Philippines, 22 million families are living off their own land, but do not have the legal documents to prove it because previously it was too expensive to get their plots properly surveyed. Drones are now providing cheap ways of doing that. Photo: Handout

Construction and development firms are likely to use them most, however, with the sector spending US$45 billion on drones last year, a separate PwC report has claimed.

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“The name of the game in the drone industry right now is not necessarily drone itself, but how to apply it,” said Matthew Cua, founder and chief executive of SkyEye Analytics, a Filipino start-up providing drone mapping and surveying services.

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