Augmented Reality Technology and the Industrial Sector
While currently more famous in popular culture for marketing purposes, AR represents a people-centred parallel to IoT. The Internet of Things brings digital technology to machines, making them more productive.
While the internet itself is a sort of cyber analog to a massive physical library with reems of pages accessible through web browsers, augmented reality superimposes contextual information in real time, enabling people to view data in context and three-dimensions.
Augmented Reality is still relatively new in adoption. According to research from Perkins Coie law firm, there was a gradual uptake in AR funding from 2016 to 2018. The main obstacle for mass adoption of AR was problems with user experience, according to survey respondents, but two-thirds of respondents ultimately predicted revenue from AR would exceed that of VR.
Within industrial settings, one of the most visible applications of augmented reality for industry is for skills development and training. Another huge potential the technology has for industry is in information gathering. As workers fit their headsets or smart glasses, they are connected to the internet, allowing for analog to digital conversions. It allows for verified, time-stamped work flow procedures to be recorded, ensuring the correct procedures are followed and removing hours of paperwork after procedures are completed.
The potential of AR to enable companies to stop training workers for “just-in-case” scenarios could be groundbreaking. Imagine having two workers faced with a task that would present hazards in the real world. Both workers are faced with fixing the problem but only one has spent weeks studying the recommended procedure to follow, the second has no experience in the field. By wearing AR glasses, the inexperienced worker can easily follow the exact steps as they are relayed to him through the glasses, ensuring the exact procedure is followed correctly. The experienced worker must rely on his training to ensure he follows the correct protocol. In many instances, the inexperienced worker being guided through the procedure is likely to fix the problem faster and with less mistakes, all without having trained for the procedure.
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