VR and AR are cousins – two innovations that fall under the same umbrella within the ambit of Industrial Revolution 4.0. They are both concerned with presenting electronic content in a novel new fashion, through immersion, real-time environments, augmentations, and the production of fresh and thrilling experiences. The evolution with these developments is how scope-altering, all-encompassing, and truly immersive that experience is.  

Virtual reality enables you to dive into created digital worlds, with a few simulations closely emulating the real world, both in terms of visual presentation, and other factors that come together to form the experience. Audiences are subjected to incredible experiences with abundant wow-factor, these experiences have been engineered with the intent taking you away from reality. Due to it’s nature, the video games industry has seen immediate success with VR. VR- based games are creating a storm both on the PC and console platforms, and video gaming companies are looking for more innovative ways to integrate VR-experiences into gaming platforms.  

Augmented Reality, or AR for short, is much like VR, but it projects electronic content (augments them) onto the real world. WebAR is another variant of AR, and the breakthrough with it is that it doesn’t need any specialist equipment to be experienced, just a computer and a browser software. Pokemon Go and Ikea’s Place App are excellent examples of next-gen AR experiences, both enable interaction with digital objects. 

Owing to the inherent nature of these two breakthrough technologies, they are utilized in completely different use-cases. Augmented Reality, for instance, can be activated via the utilization of special eyeglasses or a simple display piece, drastically evolving the modern work experience for factory workers, construction site employees, delivery personnel, and many more workers. 

Virtual reality is not suitable for these workers. With the bulky headsets that are an integral part of the VR experience, workers would be more inconvenienced than empowered, as these headsets would restrict their mobility and stop fluid interaction with the physical world. Augmented Reality are much more suitable for their use cases, and present a more natural and seamless option for them to enhance their working experience. 

Why AR will be a game changing development for the manufacturing industry 

The next topic of discussion in this blog will be the plethora of use cases for this nascent technology in the organizational context. Construction workers, for instance, can utilize AR wearables to augment overlays, for measuring several changes to their work environment, detect hazardous working conditions, or even conceptualize/visualize a completed product or structure. 

Within manufacturing, the technology has very similar application to the scenarios observed in construction work. The huge advantage with AR is that it can be used for visual overlays, to overlay text, statistics, and data that is helpful to the worker performing a specific activity. Viewing a piece of equipment with AR accessories can display information pertaining to it, revealing any potential hazards, useful statistics, and even directions for usage. 

This might sound like something from fantasy, but as the saying goes – sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. This technology is set to become more widespread during the next few years, and not just in a single domain. AR glasses have been predicted to reach around 19.1 million units shipped by this year, and when Virtual Reality equipment is added into the equation, the figure could hit a staggering 59.2 million units.  

Just visualize being aware of everything that’s taking place around you, knowing the locations of your fellow colleagues, what equipment is not working properly in the factory, or even what portions of the factory are restricted access. These are just some of the information that AR can overlay onto an industrial worker’s everyday work experience. Critical data about hazards for example, could potentially save a worker’s life. Safety is set to drastically be enhanced by augmented reality equipment. 

There’s a lot, lot more that this technology can be utilized in. The next part of this blog explores some of the ways in which this innovative new technology can be deployed in the manufacturing industry.  

Safety training, hands-on learning 

Within the manufacturing industry, one of the pressing issues facing organizations is the unfamiliarity that new staff members have with required protocols, equipment, and procedures. This can create a variety of safety-related issues, and workers can create hazards without knowing. Worse, hazards might go unnoticed. With the appropriate AR app and gadgets, these newer staff members, with lesser experience can be put in training programs, get information, and be safeguarded at all times without expenditure of excess resources. 

For example, they could shadow current personnel but stay out of the way and take in their observations with regards to working procedures. The AR system would provide the required updates and data to enable them to understand what’s going on, why, and how that is connected to their duties, role, and responsibilities at work. 

This could also be utilized to put them right to work, nonetheless through less vital, less critical tasks, that are not as risky and therefore require little to no supervision. Atheer, an industrial technology organization, has already developed an experience very much like this. It’s enterprise-centric AR app provides procedural task assistance, contextual documentation, and manuals, extra resources, and even the scanning of barcodes for timely assistance. 

We’re speaking about the possibility for learners and inexperienced rookies to begin employment in industrial maintenance and engineering early on, while obtaining hands-on learning experiences. It’s an amazing prospect and one that warrants more detailed exploration and research. 

Sophisticated training and development can be expensive when we are using big, complicated articles of machinery or hazardous equipment. Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) collaborated with Bosch utilizing the REFLEKT ONE or BOSCH CAP software platform to produce an app that visualized and furnished X-Ray vision into the Range Rover dashboard. The application enables technicians and specialists who are being trained to view everything underneath the paneling with no removal and reinstallation of the dashboard. 

References 

https://blog.thomasnet.com/augmented-reality-manufacturing