Extended Reality in Shipbuilding, a Systematic Literature Review in the making
Authors: Joni Rajamäki, Markus Krusberg, University of Turku (UTU) Department of Computing
Introduction
During the past year, the mixed reality team from the University of Turku’s (UTU) Department of Computing has conducted a systematic literature review on the research and use of extended reality (XR) within the shipbuilding industry. Here I (as the primary author) will discuss the making of this review and share some spoilers from the findings.
Purpose
A systematic literature review is a type of research that rigorously answers a specific question by identifying, appraising, and synthesizing all available evidence from multiple studies. In other words, it is a way to exhaustively gather findings from a large set of research and present a macro scale picture of what these findings say. Systematic literature reviews are often conducted during the beginning of a major research undertakings, such as a research project or a dissertation. The findings of a systematic literature review give the authors of the work both a detailed and general understanding of the state of research within a given field. The results of reviews are also greatly appreciated by other researchers due to them offering a condensed presentation of a large set of research.
The reason why we at the mixed reality team at UTU conducted this review was twofold. The review updated the team’s understanding of the state-of-the-art on the use of XR within shipbuilding, while also serving as a great entry point for our own research within the shipbuilding space. Future publications can be based on the findings of this review.
Making of
Our review followed the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) method. The PRISMA method give guidelines and ensures a transparent and systematic process. Following these guidelines, we inspected a total of 2436 publications and narrowed the research down to 44 central pieces of research discussing the use of XR within shipbuilding.
Our findings show a healthy and ongoing state of research with glimpses of mature solutions capable of being deployed into real world uses. Comparisons are also made to other reviews from adjacent fields, as well as, some predictions and recommendations regarding future research are also made.
The process of writing this review was cumbersome, but also rewarding. The proper conduction of a systematic literature review is educational to us, the authors in itself: the collection, analysis and synthesis of research has to be done properly, and during the process, the authors gain deeper insight into the workings of research databases, while also honing their own research practices. We began working on this review in early 2024, but in order to keep the findings of our research timely, a follow-up collection of research released after we performed our initial search was made during the summer of 2025. Combining and properly addressing such a large amount of research from multiple sources was intensive, but I believe we successfully identified the important trends and findings during our review.
Joni Rajamäki, University of Turku (UTU) Department of Computing