An Exploratory Model for Automating Payments in Smart Contracts for Construction Projects Based on Reality Capture

One of the most critical challenges in construction projects is ensuring that financial payments are timely, transparent, and accurately aligned with actual project progress. Traditional progress evaluation and payment verification methods are often manual, time-consuming, costly, and prone to human error or fraud. With the advancement of reality capture technologies such as LiDAR scanners, drones, and high-resolution cameras, it has become possible to obtain accurate, reliable, and up-to-date data on the physical status of a project. This research presents an exploratory model that integrates reality capture technologies with blockchain-based smart contracts and decentralized storage (IPFS) to automate payment processes in construction projects. The proposed system uses oracles to validate progress data, issues non-fungible lien tokens (NFTs) to track and secure contractors’ financial rights, and links each payment to verified physical progress. By combining BIM (Building Information Modeling) with smart contracts, the model establishes a transparent and traceable connection between the physical flow of work and the financial flow of payments. This approach aims to reduce human error, prevent financial misconduct, enhance trust among stakeholders, and simplify financial management in construction projects. The results demonstrate that the proposed framework has strong potential to improve transparency, reduce disputes, and provide an efficient, secure, and decentralized mechanism for payment automation in the construction industry.

کلیدواژه ها:

Smart Contracts ، Reality Capture ، IPFS ، BIM ، NFT ، Payment Automation