Digital Twin of the Construction Site. Completion of Olga Vysotska’s Fellowship Project within the partnership between the Halter Group and the Design++ Center at ETH Zurich

The two-year research project led by Dr Olga Vysotska marks the completion of the first postdoctoral fellowship carried out within the partnership between the Halter Group and the Design++ Center at ETH Zurich. The project focused on how robotics and augmented reality can support documentation and inspection processes on construction sites.

The research addressed a central challenge: the precise localisation of robots and digital systems within constantly evolving construction environments. Only when all systems share a common spatial understanding can physical construction progress and digital models be meaningfully connected.

As part of the project, autonomous robotic systems were used to generate precise digital twins of construction sites in the form of point clouds. These models can be aligned with BIM data and enable continuous, geometrically accurate tracking of site conditions. At the same time, the project explored how augmented reality devices can be used to visualise information on site or to directly identify deviations within the digital model.

The approaches were tested on construction sites of Halter Ltd and demonstrate the potential of digital technologies during the execution phase. They provide a basis for more efficient data capture, improved process support and higher-quality decision-making.

The results have been published in several scientific papers and complemented by an open dataset. They also form the basis for further research, particularly with regard to the autonomous navigation of robots on construction sites. Additional insights into the research project can be found in a profile of Dr Olga Vysotska on the website of the Design++ Center at ETH Zurich.

The final presentation by Olga Vysotska at the Design++ Center at ETH Zurich is available on YouTube: View presentation