Adaptation of Drone Technology in the Bangladesh Construction Industry: Opportunities, Barriers, and a Framework for Implementation

Abstract

Drone technology - formally, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) - is reshaping how construction projects are surveyed, monitored, and kept safe, with applications now ranging from rapid topographic mapping to real-time progress tracking and remote site inspection. Bangladesh’s construction industry, however, has been slow to follow this trend: drone use here remains patchy, concentrated on a small number of flagship infrastructure projects rather than embedded in routine practice. This review examines why, set against the backdrop of Bangladesh’s rapid infrastructure expansion - most visibly the Padma Multipurpose Bridge and the Dhaka Mass Transit (Metro Rail) network. Using the Technology–Organization–Environment (TOE) framework, it maps five categories of opportunity and six interlinked barriers to adoption, then proposes a five-phase implementation pathway: building awareness and capacity, easing regulatory constraints, piloting integration on live projects, converging drone data with Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and finally embedding the technology through institutional policy. The paper closes by outlining the empirical research needed to test and refine this framework.