Extended Realityin Construction 4.0: A Systematic Review of Applications, Implementation Barriers, and Research Trends

Extended reality (XR) is increasingly used to address productivity, communication, and safety challenges in the construction industry, but large-scale adoption within Construction 4.0 remains limited. The existing reviews rarely provide an integrated perspective that jointly examines XR applications, underlying technology stacks, and the barriers that constrain implementation. This study fills that gap by combining a PRISMA-compliant systematic review with a bibliometric analysis of 76 journal articles published between 2019 and 2024. The review maps XR usage in construction, which XR modes, devices, and graphics engines are most prevalent, and which barriers hinder deployment in real projects. Design visualization and coordination, immersive training, and remote assistance or inspection emerge as the dominant application areas. Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) lead the technology landscape, with Microsoft HoloLens and Meta Quest as the most frequently reported head-mounted displays and Unity as the main graphics engine. Implementation barriers are categorized into five groups—technological, organizational, economic, infrastructural, and methodological—with interoperability issues, hardware performance limitations, and the lack of standardized BIM-to-XR workflows being particularly recurrent. The review contributes to the Construction 4.0 agenda by providing a consolidated map of XR applications, technologies, and barriers, and by highlighting enablers such as open data schemas and competency-based training programs. Future research should validate AI-assisted, bidirectional BIM–XR workflows in real projects, report cost–benefit metrics, and advance interoperability standards that integrate XR into broader Construction 4.0 strategies.