State of the Art of Augmented Reality (AR) Capabilities for Civil Infrastructure Applications

TL;DR

This paper reviews the current state of augmented reality (AR) technologies for civil infrastructure, compares 16 AR headsets, and proposes a framework for practical AR applications in civil engineering.

Contribution

It provides a classification of AR capabilities specific to civil infrastructure and evaluates market AR devices for their suitability in this field.

Findings

Identified key AR capabilities relevant to civil infrastructure

Ranked 16 AR headsets based on performance metrics for civil applications

Proposed a development framework for practical AR interfaces in civil engineering

Abstract

Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology superimposing interactional virtual objects onto a real environment. Since the beginning of the millennium, AR technologies have shown rapid growth, with significant research publications in engineering and science. However, the civil infrastructure community has minimally implemented AR technologies to date. One of the challenges that civil engineers face when understanding and using AR is the lack of a classification of AR in the context of capabilities for civil infrastructure applications. Practitioners in civil infrastructure, like most engineering fields, prioritize understanding the level of maturity of a new technology before considering its adoption and field implementation. This paper compares the capabilities of sixteen AR Head-Mounted Devices (HMDs) available in the market since 2017, ranking them in terms of performance for civil infrastructure implementations. Finally, the authors recommend a development framework for practical AR interfaces with civil infrastructure and operations.