Development of a digital platform based on the integration of augmented reality and BIM for the management of information in construction processes

The construction industry is a project-based industry characterized by heterogeneity, extreme complexity and fragmented supply chain. Its complexity is increased by mutual relationships between different stakeholders involved in the creation, management and efficient exploitation of engineering data. Over the years, productivity and reliability in CI has been struggled by a difficulty in sharing information between construction project participants and in providing accurate information on site, which is a primary cause of poor performances. Therefore, the adoption of enabling tools for managing product data and information flow as well as for better communication and collaboration appears crucial in the CI. This paper describes an approach to achieve significant improvements in managing of construction activities, thanks to the adoption of ICT technologies for the immediate information delivery. In particular, this research paper will describe the developing process of a digital platform that uses augmented reality combined with BIM to provide workers with relevant information in real-time, based on their current position on the construction site. This consists in a 3D model-based integration platform that can integrate and exploit BIM models, in order to provide context-aware ""augmented"" information in real-time at the right place. The paper describes the main features of the developed tool and focuses on the actual topics of the study which are: (1) the location system using sensory information collected by mobile devices to give location awareness to the application; (2) the integration of 3D BIM model metadata in order to contextualize tasks and instructions and provide building components information.