Experimentation of a New TeleAssistance System Using Augmented Reality

ISBN : 2-9515730-9-XInternational audienceT.A.C system was built in order to propose a new mode of remote communication. When somebody needs to be assisted on a manual task, classical technical support methods such as phone or visioconference rapidly show their limits in terms of human interaction. By allowing a distant expert to see exactly what an operator is seeing, he could interact with him in interactive time thanks to augmented reality via an adequate interaction paradigm named "Picking Outlining Adding". By "simulating" co-presence of the expert close to the operator through visual guidance information, ambiguity of language and difficulty of communication are avoided, and operations are easily performed. Scientific experimentation we have conducted and we describe in this article shows the teaching interest and the efficiency of this new mode of communication. The operator learns and operates more rapidly, in complete serenity, increasing reliability of his tasks. Moreover, throughout this paper, we show that the developed principles are sufficiently general to be applied to other use cases of tele-assistance that go beyond the originally planned industrial maintenance

Experimentation of a New TeleAssistance System Using Augmented Reality

ISBN : 2-9515730-9-XInternational audienceT.A.C system was built in order to propose a new mode of remote communication. When somebody needs to be assisted on a manual task, classical technical support methods such as phone or visioconference rapidly show their limits in terms of human interaction. By allowing a distant expert to see exactly what an operator is seeing, he could interact with him in interactive time thanks to augmented reality via an adequate interaction paradigm named "Picking Outlining Adding". By "simulating" co-presence of the expert close to the operator through visual guidance information, ambiguity of language and difficulty of communication are avoided, and operations are easily performed. Scientific experimentation we have conducted and we describe in this article shows the teaching interest and the efficiency of this new mode of communication. The operator learns and operates more rapidly, in complete serenity, increasing reliability of his tasks. Moreover, throughout this paper, we show that the developed principles are sufficiently general to be applied to other use cases of tele-assistance that go beyond the originally planned industrial maintenance

Improving AR-powered remote assistance: A new approach aimed to foster operator’s autonomy and optimize the use of skilled resources

Augmented Reality (AR) has a number of applications in industry, but remote assistance represents one of the most prominent and widely studied use cases. Notwithstanding, although the set of functionalities supporting the communication between remote experts and on-site operators grew over time, the way in which remote assistance is delivered has not evolved yet to unleash the full potential of AR technology. The expert typically guides the operator step-by-step, and basically uses AR-based hints to visually support voice instructions. With this approach, skilled human resources may go under-utilized, as the time an expert invests in the assistance corresponds to the time needed by the operator to execute the requested operations. The goal of this work is to introduce a new approach to remote assistance that takes advantage of AR functionalities separately proposed in academic works and commercial products to re-organize the guidance workflow, with the aim to increase the operator's autonomy and, thus, optimize the use of expert's time. An AR-powered remote assistance platform able to support the devised approach is also presented. By means of a user study, this approach was compared to traditional step-by-step guidance, with the aim to estimate what is the potential of AR that is still unexploited. Results showed that with the new approach it is possible to reduce the time investment for the expert, allowing the operator to autonomously complete the assigned tasks in a time comparable to step-by-step guidance with a negligible need for further support

A systematic review of augmented reality applications in maintenance

Augmented Reality (AR) technologies for supporting maintenance operations have been an academic research topic for around 50 years now. In the last decade, major progresses have been made and the AR technology is getting closer to being implemented in industry. In this paper, the advantages and disadvantages of AR have been explored and quantified in terms of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for industrial maintenance. Unfortunately, some technical issues still prevent AR from being suitable for industrial applications. This paper aims to show, through the results of a systematic literature review, the current state of the art of AR in maintenance and the most relevant technical limitations. The analysis included filtering from a large number of publications to 30 primary studies published between 1997 and 2017. The results indicate a high fragmentation among hardware, software and AR solutions which lead to a high complexity for selecting and developing AR systems. The results of the study show the areas where AR technology still lacks maturity. Future research directions are also proposed encompassing hardware, tracking and user-AR interaction in industrial maintenance is proposed

Augmented Reality in Maintenance: An information-centred design framework

Augmented Reality (AR) visualization capabilities can impact on maintenance. From enhancing performance to retrieving feedback, AR can close the information loop between maintenance information systems and the operations supported. Though, the design of AR applications is not aligned with current information systems, which prevents maintenance information to be used and improved properly. In this paper, industrial collaboration contributed to determine a framework for AR integration in maintenance systems. The framework describes information types, formats and interactions modes for AR to enhance efficiency improvements in maintenance of complex equipment. Semi-structured interviews and surveys with maintainers were conducted to determine the maintenance challenges and also to validate the framework proposed. Therefore, exposing future research in topics such as multimodal interaction, information contextualization and performance analysis to achieve the complete integration of AR in maintenance

Augmented Reality in Industry 4.0

Since the origins of Augmented Reality (AR), industry has always been one of its prominent application domains. The recent advances in both portable and wearable AR devices and the new challenges introduced by the fourth industrial revolution (renowned as industry 4.0) further enlarge the applicability of AR to improve the productiveness and to enhance the user experience. This paper provides an overview on the most important applications of AR regarding the industry domain. Key among the issues raised in this paper are the various applications of AR that enhance the user's ability to understand the movement of mobile robot, the movements of a robot arm and the forces applied by a robot. It is recommended that, in view of the rising need for both users and data privacy, technologies which compose basis for Industry 4.0 will need to change their own way of working to embrace data privacy