This paper represents the result of the IAEG C35 Commission “Monitoring methods and approaches in engineering geology applications” workgroup aimed to describe a general overview of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and their potentiality in several engineering geology applications. The use of UAV has progressively increased in the last decade and nowadays started to be considered a standard research instrument for the acquisition of images and other information on demand over an area of interest. UAV represents a cheap and fast solution for the on-demand acquisition of detailed images of an area of interest and the creation of detailed 3D models and orthophoto. The use of these systems required a good background of data processing and a good drone pilot ability for the management of the flight mission in particular in a complex environment.

It is necessary to ensure safety in terms of health and accidents through the real-time monitoring of the construction site environment and workers. This problem has become of great importance due to the economic and social implications. Therefore, a sensor-based approach has been found to be beneficial in Building Information Modeling (BIM). Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technologies are well-suited for the deployment of monitoring systems. A suitable technical solution for node communication in a WSN is Long Range (LoRa) modulation technology. In this study, an autonomous LoRa-based system for the monitoring of a construction site in Lungro, Calabria, Italy, is presented. The spatial monitoring of working personnel is achieved by employing a tracker device with an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and a Global Positioning System (GPS) device. Accesses of personnel and gear to the site are registered using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags equipped with protective gear. Fixed-position solar-powered sensor nodes are also employed for structural monitoring, i.e., movement sensors are used to monitor the variation of scaffolding, building structures, and under-work housing inclinations. Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) gateways interface with the nodes and the internet for data exchange, enabling an Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm for the monitoring solution. A comprehensive overview of the workers and structural nodes, along with the RFID access management system and LoRaWAN gateway features, is provided in this article. A description of the web interface is also reported.

The background shows that intervention on historical walls highlights the difficulty of identifying design solutions that are effective and compatible due to the lack of specific data on the thermal characteristics of the specific contexts investigated. This determines the choice of design solutions that are frequently inadequate and unsustainable from an environmental and economic point of view. Starting from acquired data a methodology has been developed that is based on in situ experimental investigations able to return the most probable value of transmittance of the historical walls. The values measured on the samples analysed do not reflect the literature data. For some of the samples analysed, the measured transmittance is lower than the one recorded in literature of about 10–15%. For the remaining ones, there are no reference values. The importance of an in-depth knowledge of the real behaviour of an existing historical envelope of a building is therefore fundamental, given that any evaluation mistake can have serious consequences from both an economic and environmental point of view. Underestimating the transmittance of a wall implies a waste in the use of available resources but also the disposal of greater quantities of building materials in relation to the end of life. The developed methodology can be easily replicated in other contexts and extended to all building elements that make up the historical envelope. The study will be continued by analysing further samples in order to create a reference knowledge database accessible to researchers, professionals and organizations.