An Analysis of Extended Reality Research in the Construction Industry

This paper classifies extended reality (XR) research in the construction industry by analyzing literature from 2018 to 2021, inclusive to identify areas of research focus. A structured process is used to analyze 124 journal articles in a spreadsheet matrix, consisting of descriptive and thematic analysis. The results indicate that XR is applied primarily in design visualization and construction coordination to increase work efficiency. However, there are challenges in the acceptance of XR because of poor interoperability, large cognition demand, poor usability of XR technologies, large time commitment for implementation, and poor health and safety issues, such as motion sickness and limited visual awareness of surrounding when using immersive XR on construction sites. This paper highlights areas of research focus and areas that may require further research that may be useful to construction XR researchers.