Industrial Maintenance with Augmented Reality: Two Case Studies

Remote maintenance of industrial manipulators often is performed via telephone support. Recent approaches in the context of the 'Industry 4.0' consider internet technologies and Augmented Reality (AR) to enhance situation awareness between external experts and local service technicians. We present two AR-based case studies: First, a mobile AR architecture based on optical see through glasses is used for an on-site local repair task. Second, a remote architecture based on a portable tablet PC and a high precision tracking system is used to realize an off-site expert access. The to-be-serviced machine is visualized inside of a large area similar to a machinery hall and can be inspected by the experts walking around this virtual plant using the tablet and perspectively correct rendering to understand the production process and the operation context. Both methods have been evaluated in first user studies.