Stührenberg, JanJanStührenbergTandon, AdityaAdityaTandonSmarsly, KayKaySmarsly2026-06-032026-06-032026-05-20Advanced Engineering Informatics 74: 104809 (2026)https://hdl.handle.net/11420/63315Mobile robots are increasingly being adopted for automated building inspections to improve safety, inspection accuracy, and operational efficiency. Global path planning (GPP) is required for automated robotic inspections and usually performed on prerecorded maps generated by robots. In the construction industry, building information modeling (BIM) is ubiquitous, and BIM models can be used for GPP, eliminating the need for prerecording maps and leveraging geometric and semantic information stored in BIM models. Due to their inherent complexity, BIM models are not directly applicable to state-of-the-art path planning algorithms. Typically, navigation models that filter and structure the vast amount of information relevant to navigation are derived from BIM models to perform GPP. Current research addressing the GPP problem using BIM models is mostly performed across single floors, may provide suboptimal paths, may suffer from long computation times, and may not consider the size of robots for collision checking. This paper presents a two-level GPP framework, termed “GPP-BIM” that leverages BIM models for enhanced robot navigation. Level 1 uses BIM to generate topological maps, while level 2 creates occupancy maps for each room. The two-level approach combines the efficiency and semantic integration of topological map planning with the detailed geometric considerations of occupancy maps, such as accommodating robot dimensions and detecting obstacles. The GPP-BIM framework is implemented in the Robot Operating System (ROS) 2 and uses the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) open standard of BIM models. The GPP-BIM framework is validated on multiple IFC-based BIM models. The results of the validation tests show that GPP-BIM enables fast planning of obstacle-free and near-optimal paths in BIM environments. The GPP-BIM code is available as open-source software.en1474-03462026Elsevierhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Building information modeling (BIM)Global path planningIndustry Foundation Classes (IFC)Occupancy grid mapsRobot Operating System (ROS)Topological mapsTechnology::629: Other Branches::629.8: Control and Feedback Control Systems::629.89: Computer-Controlled Guidance::629.892: RobotTechnology::624: Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering::624.1: Structural EngineeringComputer Science, Information and General Works::006: Special computer methods::006.3: Artificial IntelligenceJournal Articlehttps://doi.org/10.15480/882.1724010.1016/j.aei.2026.10480910.15480/882.17240