Fraunhofer Augmented Reality (AR) Systems Help Engineers & Technicians Connect Remotely

Augmented Reality has been catching our attention in recent times. Sony demoed their SMART AR technology which takes the AR systems to a new level. The big question was - how'd we use AR to solve real life problems. A prototype developed by engineers and researchers from Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics FKIE in Wachtberg seems to solve one such real life problem faced by engineers and technicians. When electronic devices, machines and equipments fail it's often a great challenge to repair them without proper access to well informed engineers who designed & manufactured them. When the systems located at remote sites fail, the problem becomes more complex.

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The system uses the 2D barcodes attached to various parts of the malfunctioning machine to determine the camera’s position and direction of view and then sends this data to the experts. (© Fraunhofer FKIE)

Instead of having engineers to travel to the remote location to fix the machines, AR can help engineers and on-site technicians fix the problems. Fraunhofer's systems enables engineers to deliver real-time video instructions to the technicians. The best part is - these instructions can be delivered even without Internet access at the remote site. The setup only uses a laptop and a front facing webcam. Each component of the machine would have a 2D barcode and the software installed on laptop can read these barcodes and identify the machine and its unique parts. This information is sent to the remote engineer through standard telecom network. Another software then turns the barcode information to create a CAD design of the machine. The software creates an exact view of the machine as seen by the webcam.

With the help of AR, the engineer can overlay instructions, images and videos and use a chat protocol to instruct the on-site technician. This approach narrows down the communication gap and misinterpretation of data or information between the engineer and technician. We believe one more application of this system could be to instruct the pilots in case of aircraft emergency.

Via: #-Link-Snipped-#| Source: Fraunhofer