BIM-based Human-Robot Collaboration for Building Inspections Using Mixed Reality

Abstract: Human-robot collaboration (HRC) may be leveraged to improve building inspections by allowing robots and humans to jointly perform inspection tasks. However, HRC methods lack intuitive interfaces for seamless collaboration and contextual building information exchange, limiting collaboration and efficiency. This paper proposes a BIM-based HRC framework using mixed reality (MR), enabling operators to visualize inspection data, to control robots, and to monitor inspection processes in real time. The BIM-based HRC framework is implemented using MR headsets and validated through collaborative inspections of an indoor office environment, showcasing the potential of the framework to advance collaborative building inspections and improve inspection accuracy and efficiency.