By Gavin Jenkins, Senior Managing Editor
MUNICH — Virtual reality (VR) has the potential to transform the roads and bridges construction industry. This technology could be used to enhance training and safety, while also improving design and collaboration.
This week, at the 34th edition of Bauma, attendees can see what it’s like to visit a construction site virtually in the VR Experience Zone, which is held in the Innovation Hall in Munich’s Neue Messe München exhibition center.
Held every three years by organizer Messe München, Bauma is the world’s leading trade fair for construction machinery, building material machines, mining machines, construction vehicles and construction equipment.
Bauma also boasts to offer a “future-oriented platform” for the construction industry, which begs the big question regarding VR: is it ready to transform the construction industry now, in 2025, or is it still a few years away?
André Sitte said there are German construction companies that are already using VR for training. Sitte has a PhD in mechatronics, which is the integration of mechanical systems with electronics and software, and he is the coordinator of the Construction Future Lab, an independent research and development facility founded at the Dresden University of Technology.
The Construction Future Lab collaborated with Messe München to host the VR Experience Zone at Bauma.
The virtual jobsite Bauma attendees can visit looks incredible and vivid: clear blue, an engine running, equipment ready to be used. You’re walking around the VR Experience Zone with the VR goggles, but it feels like you’re transported to a jobsite.
“VR can be used for teaching maintenance on a machine,” he said.
Sitte said that VR can be used when construction equipment is being designed and built to simulate how the machine will run. It also can be used for training new workers how to use equipment.
To develop VR for a road construction project, Volker Waurich, head of construction robotics at the Construction Future Lab, said that the virtual jobsite would need certain information before its made. He said the VR designer would need geometric data, terrain models and planning data, even what utility pipes are underneath the road.
“We make a concept of what we want to show, getting all the data, getting the kind of information we want to convey,” Waurich said. “And then we start developing, getting the assets together.
Waurich added that, depending on the size of the road project, the virtual jobsite could take days or weeks to create.
The VR equipment can be an issue. The overhead goggles are heavy. Waurich admitted that people get annoyed by the gear after 10-15 minutes.
This might be an indication that VR isn’t completely ready now, which was a topic of discussion on a recent episode of the Infrastructure Technology Podcast (ITP).
On the March 25 episode of the ITP, Jay Wratten, WSP’s executive digital lead, and Chris Harmon, WSP’s director of digitals delivery and innovation, agreed that VR won’t go mainstream in the construction industry in 2025.
“I still think it’s coming,” Harmon said. “But not this year.”
To prove his point, Harmon pointed to the recent news that Microsoft quit wearable headset technology when it handed over its billion-dollar Department of Defense contract to Anduril.
“I am long-term bullish,” Harmon said. “But I don't think this is the year. I don't see us all adopting it. I don't see it all coming. I mean, unless there's a breakthrough, but I think we're going to have to keep Waiting for that true magic of extended reality.”
Wratten pointed to the issues with the gear.
“There's something unappealing about sharing a visor with strangers, and that is a major impediment,” he said.
During the show, Wratten said that augmented technology was more popular at the moment: wearable cameras, site data acquisition, wearable LIDAR scanners.
Sitte agreed, pointing out that augmented technology is actually more popular with young people.
However, VR has potential. It could be used visualizing design. Stakeholders of a project could use VR to do a virtual walkthrough of a site. VR can help with project planning, simulating sequences and logistics.
VR also can help improve safety training and help track quality control, as well as maintenance.
