如何快速检测一幢58层的摩天大楼？试试无人机

As the head of a 700-year-old winemaking dynasty, Lamberto Frescobaldi is overseeing a construction project in one of his Tuscany vineyards using technology that would have seemed otherworldly to his ancestors: high-flying drones.

兰贝托·弗雷斯科巴尔迪(Lamberto Frescobaldi)统领着一个有700年历史的葡萄酒酿造王朝，他眼下正在监督自己位于托斯卡纳的一座葡萄园的建设项目，并且使用了他的祖辈会视为天外之物的技术：高空无人机。

Ubiquitous as toys for the gadget-minded — and sometimes for purposes like spying and dropping explosives — drones have become indispensable tools in construction and real estate. Their relatively low cost and ease of handling have made work more efficient for architects, landscape designers, surveyors, builders, structural engineers and brokers.

作为那些科技小玩意爱好者的消遣之物，无人机随处可见——有时它也用于侦查和投弹之类用途——在建筑和房地产业，它已成为不可或缺的工具。因为相对廉价和易于操控，它们提高了建筑师、景观设计师、测量师、施工方、结构工程师和房产经纪人的工作效率。

By launching a drone over the Perano vineyard in the Chianti region south of Florence, Mr. Frescobaldi can examine the progress of a 25,000-square-foot garden being built atop one of his wine cellars. The rooftop garden is intended for wine tastings, a crucial marketing strategy for the vintner’s business, Marchesi Frescobaldi. The company, which has a half-dozen vineyards that produce 11 million bottles of wine each year, reported revenue of $120 million in 2017.Richard Shelbourne, a British landscape architect who designed the garden, said the drone images helped refine the project. “The garden design, which started in my head and was then calculated and set out on paper, could now be seen in full scale from the air, and all the lines and curves were in the right place,” he said.

弗雷斯科巴尔迪第在佛罗伦萨南部基昂蒂(Chianti)的佩拉诺葡萄园上空施放无人机，这样就能查看他在其中一个酒窖上方建造的2.5万平方英尺(约合2300平方米)花园的工程进度。这个屋顶花园打算用于品酒，这在花思蝶酒庄(Marchesi Frescobaldi)非常重要的营销策略。这家公司拥有6个葡萄园，年产葡萄酒1100万瓶，2017年营业收入据报达到1.2亿美元。设计这座花园的英国景观设计师理查德·谢尔本(Richard Shelbourne)说，无人机拍摄的影像有助于项目的完善。“花园的设计始自我脑中，然后经过计算落到纸面，现在能从空中看到完整的比例，所有的直线曲线都准确无误。”他说。

The drone allowed the men to observe the work of excavators and motorized barrows, and the construction of pergolas, fountains and terra-cotta walkways. After looking at the drone footage during construction, they decided to modify an entrance to the garden.

无人机让他们能够视察挖掘机和机动手推车的工作，以及凉棚、喷泉和砖墁步道的建造。施工期间在看过无人机拍摄的画面之后，他们决定修改一处花园入口。

“I asked my son to fly over a number of times, so I could imagine how it would be planted, to give it attention from a perspective that you usually do not have,” Mr. Frescobaldi said. “These modern devices, these videos — it’s progress.”

“我让我儿子用无人机飞了很多次，这样我就能设想该如何种植花木，能从平常做不到的视角注视它，”弗雷斯科巴尔迪第说。“这些现代设备，这些影像——这就是进步。”

Small, swift and agile, drones have all but replaced the more costly and less nimble helicopter for tasks that involve inspections, measurements and marketing images.

小巧、快速、敏捷的无人机在观察、测量和拍摄营销影像等任务中几乎已取代了更贵、灵活性更低的直升机。

Interest in drones is rising for both consumer and commercial use. Sales of drones increased 33 percent in 2017 over the prior year, according to the market research firm NPD Group.

一般消费用途和商业用途对无人机的兴趣都在增加。市场调查公司NPD集团称，2017年无人机销售量同比增长33%。

In 2016, the Federal Aviation Administration allowed commercial drone use for a broad range of businesses, but with restrictions: Pilots must be at least 16 years old and pass a written test.

2016年，美国联邦航空管理局批准了商用无人机广泛应用于商业领域，但也有一定限制：操作者必须年满16岁并通过笔试。

On building sites, drones are saving money and time by providing digital images, maps and other files that can be shared in a matter of minutes, said Mike Winn, the chief executive of DroneDeploy, a company founded five years ago in San Francisco that creates software for, among other uses, operating drones with mobile apps.

Drone Deploy的首席执行官迈克·温(Mike Winn)说，在建筑工地上，无人机提供的数字图像、地图和其他文件在几分钟内就能共享给相关各方，节省了资金和时间。这家公司五年前在旧金山成立，开发运用移动应用程序操作无人机等多种用途的软件。

Drones are reducing the travel time for busy executives, Mr. Winn said. “The head office can see what’s going on, and the safety team, the costing team, the designers — all of them can contribute to the project, share data and comment on it, without actually going to the job.”

无人机也为忙碌的公司高管节省了差旅时间，温说道。“公司总部能看到项目进展，安全团队、成本团队、设计师——他们都能为项目出力，共享数据并作出评点，不用真到施工现场。”

They could also improve safety. In the days before drones, Mr. Winn said, measuring the roof of a house for solar panels would require “a guy with a tape measure to climb up there,” which often produced inaccurate results and, like anything involving heights, was dangerous.

无人机还能提高安全性。温说，在无人机出现之前的时代，在一幢房子的屋顶安装太阳能板需要“一个人带着皮尺爬上去”进行测量，而且得到的结果常常不精确，加之因为需要爬高的缘故，这个工作很危险。

Such peril is magnified in the construction of skyscrapers, said John Murphy Jr., a contractor on the Paramount Miami Worldcenter, a 58-story condominium tower being built in downtown Miami. Before drones, Mr. Murphy said, workers seeking access to the exterior of a high-rise were “dropped over the side” in so-called swing stages, small platforms that hang from cables. Often used by window cleaners, swing stages are precarious in high winds.

迈阿密市中心58层在建公寓楼派拉蒙世界中心的建筑承包商小约翰·墨菲(John Murphy Jr.)说，这种危险在摩天楼的建设中就更大了。墨菲说，有无人机之前，工人要去高层建筑外部，是用所谓的吊板——以缆绳悬挂的小平板“从楼侧放下去”。这种吊板擦窗工经常用到，在大风里非常危险。

“No one wants to go out there,” he said. “It’s scary.”

“没人想去，”他说。“太吓人了。”

Falls accounted for 384 of the 991 deaths in the construction industry in 2016, according to the latest figures from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. That number could be reduced over time by increasing the use of drones for quality-control inspections and similar missions.

据美国职业安全与健康管理局(Occupational Safety and Health Administration)的最新数据，2016年美国建筑行业的991起死亡案例中有384起是高空坠落。随着时间的推移，通过增加无人机在建筑质量检查及类似任务中的使用，这个数字会逐渐减小。

“We’re definitely limiting the exposure to workers,” said Mr. Murphy, who on a recent afternoon was at the Paramount site to supervise a drone inspection of window glazing on the tower. The drone’s camera was looking for possible leaks, water intrusion and “other things that you can’t see from the interior of the building.”

“我们肯定减少了工人的风险，”墨菲说，最近的某个下午他在派拉蒙的工地上监督一架无人机检查大楼的幕墙玻璃。无人机上的摄像头寻找着可能的渗漏、透水和“从建筑内部看不到的各种其他问题”。

Earlier, the drone was used to check the quality of steel connections in a bridge, 72 feet above the ground, that links the main tower to a parking structure.

更早的时候，这架无人机还用来检查一座天桥的钢结构连接的质量，天桥距地面72英尺(约合22米)，连通主楼与一幢停车楼。

The utility of drones often begins long before the foundation is poured. They help planners decide where to place new buildings. And at the 87-room Foundry Hotel in downtown Asheville, N.C., the developer sent a drone to the precise height and location of a proposed fourth-floor balcony to help him decide how best to take advantage of the view.

无人机常常在地基浇筑之前就派上用场了。它们帮助规划者决定把新建筑置于何处。北卡罗莱纳州阿什维尔市中心有87间客房的Foundry酒店还未开建时，开发商让一架无人机飞到规划中四楼露台的确切高度和位置，帮助他决定如何最好地利用景观。

“A drone really helps us to conceptualize what a development is going to be, because sometimes it’s hard to do that just from a set of plans,” said Alexandros D. Papapieris, the development manager at McCall Capital, which is converting a 1925 office building in Bristol, Va., into the 65-room Bristol Hotel, set to open this fall. “Everyone loves a good aerial. Drones allowed us to paint a picture for the investors about why this was a good idea.”

“无人机的确帮助我们对一个开发项目会是什么样子有了概念，因为有时候光靠一堆方案很难做到，”亚历山德罗·帕帕皮里斯(Alexandros D. Papapieris)说。他是麦考尔资本(McCall Capital)的开发经理，该公司正在把弗吉尼亚州布里斯托尔市一座1925年的办公楼改造成65间客房的布里斯托尔酒店，定于今年秋季开张。“好的航拍画面人人爱看。无人机让我们能够绘出图景，告诉投资人为什么这是个好主意。”

Careers are being transformed with the new technology. Pedro Domecq, a videographer in San Sebastián, Spain, bought his first drone in 2011. “It cost $6,000,” he said. “Now, they cost $1,000 and they’re much better.”

某些职业也随着这个新技术而改变。西班牙圣塞巴斯蒂安的摄影师佩德罗·多梅克(Pedro Domecq)在2011年买了他的第一架无人机。“花了6000美元，”他说。“现在的机器只要1000美元，而且还好得多。”

Initially, Mr. Domecq used the drone to capture aerial videos of his picturesque Basque Country surroundings and share them on social media. Now, under the banner of his company, Heliworx, Mr. Domecq spends much of his time fulfilling contracts with builders.

最开始多梅克用无人机航拍巴斯克地区周边风景如画的视频，分享到社交网络上。现在，在他自己的公司Heliworx旗号下，多梅克大量时间用来完成与各建筑商的合同。

“It’s all much easier with a drone,” said Mr. Domecq, who has lately been producing high-definition aerial surveys for the construction conglomerate Acciona, which is building a high-speed railroad that will connect the Basque Country with Madrid.

“有了无人机一切都容易多了，”多梅克说，他最近在为建筑工程集团安迅能(Acciona)进行高清航空测量作业，该公司正在修建一条连接巴斯克地区和马德里的高速铁路。

Mr. Domecq’s drone flights are aided by photogrammetry, in which three-dimensional digital models are created from overlapping photographs of a structure, landscape or object. Some of the flights involve mapping the paths to be taken underground by the many tunnels required for the railroad in the region’s mountainous terrain.

多梅克的无人机飞行得到了摄影测量的辅助，这种技术通过叠加一个结构、地貌或物体的照片来创建三维数字模型。在这个多山地区修建铁路需要开掘许多隧道，部分无人机飞行的任务就包括绘制出这些地下路径。

Younger business owners see drones as a moneymaking tool. After graduating from college four years ago and starting a small video marketing company in Charleston, S.C., Matt Coda found himself being asked to produce industrial videos with a drone. His biggest coup was a contract for his company, Vive Media, to document the first phase of construction of a 280-acre container terminal for the South Carolina Ports Authority.

更年轻的一些企业主将无人机视为赚钱工具。马特·科达(Matt Coda)四年前大学毕业后，在南卡罗来纳州查尔斯顿创办了一家小型视频营销公司，他发现总有人找他用无人机拍摄工业视频。最大的意外之喜是接到合同，让他的公司Vive Media用无人机记录南卡罗来纳港务局一个280英亩(约合113公顷)集装箱码头的第一期建设情况。

For more than a year, said Mr. Coda, 26, he provided monthly progress reports to his client, the S.J. Hamill Construction Company, in the form of video updates. He flew the drone along the same two routes on the development site to show Hamill Construction the entire property as the project progressed.

26岁的科达说，在一年多时间里，他每个月都以视频更新的形式向客户哈米尔建筑公司提交工程进度报告。他操作无人机在工地上空沿两条固定线路飞行，让哈米尔建筑公司随着工程进展看到整个情况。

In May, Mr. Coda began working on the building site of the South Carolina Aeronautical Training Center, an $80-million, 224,000-square-foot structure at Trident Technical College in North Charleston.

今年5月，科达又开始拍摄南卡罗来纳州航空训练中心的建设工地，这个耗资8000万美元、22.4万平方英尺(约合2公顷)的建筑位于北查尔斯顿市的特莱登特技术学院(Trident Technical College)。

“It’s fascinating to see a project evolve,” said Mr. Coda, a certified drone operator. “But I’m grateful to be the one flying the drone and not doing the actual construction.”

“目睹一个项目渐渐成形令人着迷，”获得认证的无人机操作员科达说。 “但谢天谢地我是那个飞无人机的，而不是真正干建筑的。”