Augmented Reality based Facility Maintenance using Building Information Models
The longest phase in a facility’s lifecycle is its maintenance period, during which operators perform activities to provide a comfortable living and working environment as well as to upkeep equipment to prevent functional failures. In current practice operators need a considerable amount of time to manually process dispersed and unformatted facility information to perform an actual task. Existing research approaches lack comprehensive and integrated data models, rely on expensive hardware infrastructure or use artificial thus unesthetic Augmented Reality (AR) markers. In this paper we present a conceptual framework that uses BIM and natural markers (e.g. exit signs) for AR-based facility maintenance support. The proposed workflow is comprised of three major activities: Digital Work Order Compilation, AR-based Indoor Navigation, and ARbased Maintenance Instructions. Experiments on campus and preliminary results indicate the feasibility and potential of combining BIM and natural markers for AR-based maintenance support.