Context:

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have become very important in recent years, integrating these robots into various sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, energy, public, construction, among others; precisely in this last mentioned sector (construction), advances have been made, allowing the manipulation, transport and identification of building elements, as well as cooperation between different aerial robots and/or ground robots to solve the payload limit problem, associated with UAVs.

Method:

This paper is divided into four categories where UAVs and UAS have been contributing to the development of construction activities autonomously. The first category presents works in which UAS build modular architectural structures; the second category exposes works in which UAVs are equipped with robotic arms to perform manipulation tasks; the third category presents works of cooperation between aerial robots and robots; finally, the fourth category presents unmanned aerial systems for payload transportation.

Results:

An overview of various unmanned aerial systems is obtained by performing simple tasks that lead to the automation of the construction sector. The current characteristics, virtues and limitations of these systems are shown, as well as the challenges that are proposed for the future.

Conclusions:

The current market for UAVs is mainly oriented towards teleoperated systems; however, research centers have been developing more autonomous UAVs and UASs. The low payload capacity of these systems has been compensated with the cooperation between aerial, terrestrial and even human robots. This same cooperation requires the creation of algorithms that coordinate all the agents that intervene in the system. The conditions of the construction environment must be taken into account, as well as the precision and stability of these systems.