Imagine seeing your entire jobsite every day, in real time without sending a single person into the field. At CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2026, contractors will discover how automated drone docks deliver daily progress tracking and real-time aerial intelligence, with a live demonstration in the session Eyes in the Sky, On-Demand: Drone Docks Built for Dirt, Deadlines, and Data.
In this session, Nino Efendic, president of Aerial Prospex LLC based in Lititz, Pennsylvania will detail how autonomous drone docks are transforming jobsite operations with real-time aerial intelligence, 24/7 monitoring and zero pilot overhead. No longer will contractors have to wait to hear from people in the field about changing site conditions.
“You now have an automated tool that gives you updated data about site deliveries, site conditions after rain, conditions over the weekend,” Nino says. “You really have an endless toolbox of use cases you can now implement with all the data collection you're getting.”
The biggest misconception in the construction industry is that drones are just a great marketing tool, he says. Not so: automated aerial intelligence can really change the way contractors make decisions day-to-day, which can then materially boost their bottom line.
In this session, contractors will be treated to a live demonstration of a drone dock in action and explore practical deployment strategies for real-world jobsites.
AERIAL INTELLIGENCE DEFINED
A drone dock is a compact station that houses a drone onsite, Nino says. Contractors designate a small 10-foot by 10-foot area for the drone dock to be placed, whether that’s on the ground with fencing for security, mounted on a rooftop for a better vantage point, or deployed using Aerial Prospex’s mobile drone dock trailer.
Contractors can perform scheduled or on-demand drone flights for site monitoring, survey data collection, earthworks tracking and aerial inspections without manual intervention, Nino says. Flight schedules are based on a specific project's needs, whether that’s daily progress tracking, weekly earthworks updates or on-demand site checks. Contractors define their deliverables, whether it’s high-resolution imagery, 3D models or volumetric analysis.
“Really what we're getting by turning on this technology is real-time data collection and in turn, real-time decisions,” he says.
That’s a stark difference from the typical practice of measuring earthmoving progress after key milestones or before large purchases of stone or materials, Nino explains. Autonomous tracking on a more constant cadence enables contractors to better project how much progress they've made, how much more material they actually need or whether there are errors in grading calculations.
“Now you have the ability to recognize the problem the very next morning, rather than spending a whole week excavating to the wrong calculation due to some simple mistake.”
In this session, contractors will learn what it means to have zero pilot overhead. It’s not just about eliminating the need for a human to pilot a drone; it also means eliminating more humans to manually collect and transfer the data. Once the drone lands, it immediately starts wirelessly transmitting photos from the drone into the dock where they get uploaded to the cloud.
ADDITIONAL BENEFITS OF AUTOMATED AERIAL INTELLIGENCE
Now all project stakeholders can review the same updated aerial data, which can help reduce debate about what needs to get done next, whether that’s approving a change order, reallocating certain equipment to a jobsite or ordering materials based off the updated data, Nino says.
Jobsite safety can also be enhanced on a continuous basis, he says. With the help of artificial intelligence, a lot of issues that might get missed or not addressed immediately can be picked up thanks to the drone.
For example, drones can detect if the height of a building being constructed has changed, necessitating new tie points for safety harnesses, Nino says. Routine automated drone flights can also lessen the inspection burden for a contractor’s safety director.
“But even more importantly, crews don't have to be working in conditions that are unsafe,” he says. “The drone is able to go ahead of them, whether it's after a rain event to detect if trenches have been caved in or if the roof is icy.”
What about safety when the drone is in use? Aerial Prospex provides FAA-approved Category 2 and Category 3 drones, with parachutes that are pre-approved to enable safe operation over jobsites and people, as well as areas adjacent to the jobsite, if necessary, Nino explains. Drones are also equipped with sensors on all sides to detect and avoid obstacles from all directions in real time.
“Then as the fourth level of safety, we have pilots monitoring these drones when they're operating autonomously who can step in at any given moment and obtain control,” he says.
GETTING STARTED
For contractors attending this session and want to act right away, Nino will detail practical steps they can take to begin deploying drone dock technology.
“Keep it simple,” he says. “Pick one active project and one specific problem on that project that you want to solve, whether it's progress tracking, earthwork quantities, site visibility. Evaluate if you were to place a drone dock there tomorrow, what would your project team be able to do that they can't do right now?”
Give it a six-month trial on one project and determine whether the solution works and can be adopted for widespread use on projects that require constant or repeatable data collection, like progress tracking or earthworks monitoring, he advises.
“Drone docks are not the end-all be-all…not every jobsite needs one.”
The strongest use cases are large active sites with ongoing earthmoving, such as civil infrastructure, residential developments, large energy projects and large industrial builds, Nino shares, “that's really where we see the most value.”
Beyond earthmoving, drone dock technology is particularly useful for jobsites that have “a lot of things going on,” with numerous subcontractors and a lot of progress to track on a daily schedule rather than a weekly, biweekly or monthly schedule, he says.
LIVE DEMO
In this session, contractors will be treated to a live demonstration of a drone dock in action and explore practical deployment strategies for real-world jobsites. If they’re trying to picture this technology working on their own jobsites, Nino recommends that they imagine the cadence of automated drone flights and data collection, and how the entirely new workflow can inform better decisions.
“You are now collecting photos every single day from the same exact spots and as the progress or project changes, you're adapting those flights to collect the data that you care about the most.”
Come to Nino Efendic’s CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2026’s session, Eyes in the Sky, On-Demand: Drone Docks Built for Dirt, Deadlines, and Data, and learn how general contractors and heavy civil contractors are leveraging drone dock technology to stay ahead of schedule and under budget. Register for CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2026 today.
PHOTO COURTESY OF AERIAL PROSPEX LLC
