A Novel Approach for the Combined Use of AR Goggles and Mobile Devices as Communication Tools on the Shopfloor

Existing and evolving trends and paradigms in manufacturing, such as mass customisation and personalisation, call for better communication among product-production design and customisation and production execution. Specifically, the lack of feedback from and to the shopfloor can lead to lower product quality and increased production times. In state-of-the-art industrial practices, the most common visual interface devices for communication comprise control unit terminals, TFT monitors mounted over work stations, as well as the growing trend of mobile PCs and tablets. New technologies, such as Augmented Reality (AR), have also been considered in academic research for process simulation and operator guidance and training. This paper proposes a novel use of AR goggles, coupled with other mobile devices for the communication of people, working on the shopfloor and in the engineering offices. The proposed methodology tries to address the challenges, related to the use of both technologies (and their respective interfaces) by presenting an integrated approach: the use of a mobile device as an input device and as a fiducial marker for the positioning of a virtual screen in front of the user. After the presentation of the concept, its advantages and disadvantages, compared with current practices as well with the rest of the relevant academic work, are presented. The technical implementation to be realised, including specific software frameworks that will be used is also described. Special attention is given to the data models that will support the implementation of this approach as well as to show how they can be integrated into the existing systems and practices. (C) 2014 The Authrs. Published by Elsevier B.V.