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Journal of Graphics ›› 2026, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (1): 68-77.DOI: 10.11996/JG.j.2095-302X.2026010068

• Image Processing and Computer Vision • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Performance evaluation of construction site object detection under drone-captured perspective

SONG Zhuo1, LU Dehui1, HUANG Zhichao1, TIAN Shiyu1, YAN Ronglong2, DENG Yichuan2,3()   

  1. 1 Guangzhou No. 1 Construction Group Co. Ltd., Guangzhou Guangdong 510060, China
    2 School of Civil Engineering and Transportation, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou Guangdong 510641, China
    3 State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Building and Urban Science, Guangzhou Guangdong 510641, China
  • Received:2025-03-19 Accepted:2025-07-23 Online:2026-02-28 Published:2026-03-16
  • Contact: DENG Yichuan
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China(52308314);Youth Enhance Project of Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province(2023A1515030169);Technology Innovation Program of Guangdong Provincial Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development(20250305J0004);Technology Program Project of Guangzhou Municipal Construction Group CO. LTD([2023]-KJ008)

Abstract:

The organizational management of construction sites is a critical aspect in engineering management; however, traditional human supervision method is constrained by many environment limitations and low efficiency. In recent years, multiple government departments have issued relevant policies advocating deep integration of artificial intelligence with the real economy to promote high-quality and efficient economic development. The accuracy, efficiency, and automation advantages of Computer Vision (CV) technology have gradually led to its widespread application in the field of construction supervision. Meanwhile, the drones, which can efficiently obtain complex and varied visual data of construction scene, demonstrate their application potential in CV-based construction supervision tasks. However, the current researches on drone-based construction scene detection are limited, and the lack of overhead-perspective construction-scene image datasets restricts further development in the field. Therefore, the DJI Mavic 3T drone was utilized to obtain construction-site images to establish an open-source overhead image dataset for construction scene UB-CSD. Several advanced object-detection algorithms were selected for comparative experiments on the UB-CSD dataset, and the reasons for performance differences were analyzed from multiple dimensions such as model workflow design, computation principle, and task characteristics. The mAPs of every algorithm’s detection result were YOLOv8 and YOLOv10 (96.1%), YOLOv9 (96.0%), YOLO11 (95.7%), DETR (95.3%), Faster-RCNN (76.3%) and RetinaNet (72.1%). The analysis results indicated that the YOLO series algorithm constituted the most optical algorithm for drone-based object detection tasks in construction scenes. By establishing a new open-source special dataset and conducting comparative experiments, the conclusion drawn provided effective data and experimental cases to support future safety production management and object-detection algorithm research in the construction industry.

Key words: construction scene, drones, object detection, YOLO, Faster-RCNN, DETR, RetinaNet

CLC Number: