Augmented Reality

The comprehensive digitalization of work environment constitutes major challenges in connection with new media and an extended human-computer interaction. In this context, service and maintenance proved to be an important field of application for this form of Industry 4.0. An adequate process execution and documentation has to be secured, even under challenging conditions, e.g. malfunctions on short notice, harsh working conditions or tight timeframes. These requirements as well as the increasing digitalization promote the application of Augmented Reality solutions in this area. With a focus on maintenance of wind energy turbines, this article describes the state of the art in relation to current solution approaches and development needs in connection with a process-oriented application of Augmented Reality. Therefore, current solutions that are already on the market are considered as well as results of the joint research project “AR Maintenance System”.

The methods presented allow the splitting of classic monolithic numerical controls of industrial robots and machine tools into their functional units. The core functionalities can then be brought onto different computers in even separate places. Using techniques of augmented reality allows enriching a captured scene with additional information, as a virtual model of the industrial robot or the planned paths. Combining these approaches leads to a simplified programming task for industrial robots as the programs can be visualized in their context. This decreases setup time and improves quality.

Highly valuable goods are usually customized to the specific needs of the customer. It is therefore essential to integrate the customer in the important decisions during the engineering phase. This article introduces a Augmented Reality solution to design and plan variants on-site together with the customer. This solution was tested on a real example, a retrofit of an emission reducing technology on a ship.

The layout planning represents a prime example of the interdisciplinary nature of factory planning. A comprehensive cooperation provides opportunities to involve ideas and experiences of as many people as possible, to exploit synergies, to realize a faster coordination of the planning status between the departments and thus improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the planning process. The development of more powerful computer technology and the increasing popularity of mobile devices (e.g. smartphones, tablet computers) provide new potentials and possibilities for the use of Augmented Reality (AR) in the application field of factory planning. This paper describes an approach for the application of AR in participative layout planning.

Smartphones and tablet PCs are increasingly wowing industrial applications with their high functionality, ever greater capability and ease of use. The project “Spatial Programming of Industrial Robots” makes full use of these benefits. The robot programmer is supported through a mobile augmented reality app and gesture-based interaction for the definition of the program. In this regard, the app covers spatial visualization of the program in a real environment and program management. The robot programs can be transmitted from the mobile device via an unified interface to the robot controllers. Furthermore, there are interfaces for the exchange of robot programs with common simulation tools of the digital factory.

Customized product variants and ever shorter development cycles are defining the basic challenges in product life cycles. Moreover, enhanced product quality is connected with increasing product complexity and necessitates adapting workflow organization and integrating IT aids, which are intended to minimize process times, reduce fault potential and render complex work steps manageable. Augmented reality technology helps meeting increased requirements, particularly for manual work. Projects from the Fraunhofer IFF provide a basis to elucidate current issues in research and application.

Ongoing development of automation technologies and a foreseeable lack of specialized workforces require a better organization of work processes in production and adjacent domains. In this context, an optimized division of functions and labour between humans and robots in terms of direct human-robot cooperation will become a relevant topic. But from a security and labour protection point of view, this is critical, since the strict separation between the robot’s danger area and the employee has to be given up. The earlier and the more effective the planned process can be checked for compliance with security directives, the higher are security and quality levels as well as cost and time savings of the installation. Today’s 3D simulation environments cover industrial robotics comprehensively already: from heavyweight goods handling to arc welding and paint shop applications, diverse scenarios can be modelled and simulated. If necessary, human workers are represented by digital human ...

The Cluster of Excellence “Integrative Production Technology for High-Wage Countries”, funded by the German Research Foundation, at the RWTH Aachen University develops solutions to improve the competitiveness of production in Germany. In the future, production systems should be capable of independently adapting to new conditions as a result of the development of cognitive controls, e.g., for robot-aided assembly processes. The tasks of the human operator will thereby focus primarily on system monitoring and direct cooperation with robots. Based on the new requirements regarding this cognitive system, one focus is the development of an ergonomic human-machine-interface.

The Cluster of Excellence “Integrative Production Technology for High-Wage Countries”, funded by the German Research Foundation, at the RWTH Aachen University develops solutions to improve the competitiveness of production in Germany. In the future, production systems should be capable of independently adapting to new conditions as a result of the development of cognitive controls, e.g., for robot-aided assembly processes. The tasks of humans will thereby focus primarily on system monitoring and direct cooperation with robots. A system developed at the IAW serves as the foundation for the design of AR-based user interfaces for computer-supported planning of human-robot cooperation processes.

In many applications Virtual Prototyping allows for an analysis based on computer models reducing time and cost. The Augmented Reality technology offers new potentials for virtual prototyping by augmenting a user’s view on real objects with additional computer generated information. In analogy to hardware in the loop techniques it is possible, e.g., to jointly analyse already existing and virtual components of a system currently under development. In this paper we describe the application and potential benefits of AR-technologies. As an example we present a mobile test platform for the analysis and evaluation of automotive ergonomics under real driving condi-tions in the field of automobile advance development.