Environmental and financial feasibility of a drone-built architectural structure

Digitalization is spreading across all sectors. The construction industry progresses with the development of Building Information Modelling (BIM), but the sector still lags behind. BIM has changed how construction projects are managed but does not revolutionize how they are built. Recently, drones have been introduced in our lives. What if the drones were capable to build the homes of tomorrow? This study is motivated by keeping humans at the center of revolutions. The research has two goals: to quantify the environmental impact and the costs of drone-built architectural structures. Previous research has measured the environmental impact of single-family houses built by human workers as well as has detailed the construction costs. Our most significant contribution is the environmental and financial comparison between using human workers and drones. We conducted a life cycle assessment (LCA) on a Belgian single-family house. Contrary to our expectations, the analysis showed that drone-built walls and floors lower the house’s climate change impact by 0,1 percent. Furthermore, using drones enables us to build twenty times faster for one third of the price.