Journal of Information Technology in Construction
Journal of Information Technology in Construction
ITcon Vol. 31, pg. 674-698, http://www.itcon.org/2026/30
Automating construction site guardrail safety inspection using BIM and point cloud segmentation
| DOI: | 10.36680/j.itcon.2026.030 | |
| submitted: | January 2026 | |
| published: | June 2026 | |
| editor(s): | Amor R | |
| authors: | Vimal Bharathi, Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark (DTU) vvebh@dtu.dk Jochen Teizer, Professor Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark (DTU) teizer@dtu.dk | |
| summary: | Due to the dynamic nature of construction sites, constant installation and removal of safety equipment is a required practice. This to date requires manual, thus infrequent and still time-consuming inspections to ensure the safety measures are correctly in place when needed. This paper introduces a novel end-to-end pipeline that integrates SafeConAI, UAV-collected point cloud data, and 4D BIM to automate safety inspections, overcoming the limitations of fragmented prior approaches by enabling real-time deviation mapping and comprehensive safety monitoring. This approach aims to bridge the gap between as-built data integration with autonomous navigation by providing location-aware compliance checking. Autonomous ground or aerial vehicles collect point clouds, and a segmentation model is trained to detect and segment safety guardrails and other essential building elements. The system is built and tested in a laboratory environment first by creating a typical fall-from-height protection case. The information generated from the point cloud segmentation is then compared with the original BIM to monitor and point out deviations, and finally provides an analysis report in a user-friendly SafeBIM. The method has been evaluated on several test cases from laboratory to real construction site settings. The results from this work indicate a promising method that can assist practitioners in (semi-) automating construction site safety inspection and making workplaces safer. | |
| full text: | (PDF file, 9.027 MB) | |
| citation: | Bharathi, V. & Teizer, J. (2026). Automating construction site guardrail safety inspection using BIM and point cloud segmentation. Journal of Information Technology in Construction (ITcon), 31, 674-698. https://doi.org/10.36680/j.itcon.2026.030 | |
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