NUREMBERG — Shorter development times and faster repairs are making "augmented reality," a system for displaying electronic information in the form of images, a possibility.

Industry sectors such as prototype and small-volume manufacturing, service jobs for complex systems and product development could profit from the new technology, which is designed to display context-related information.

In one possible scenario, a technician with data goggles bends over the engine block of a luxury car and removes the covering. He is receiving instructions through an ear piece telling him what to do next while his data goggles mark the screws and bolts on which he must next place his tool. When he turns his head, the instructions and markings still stay in the same place: A tiny camera on the technician's helmet reports each of his head movements to the computer, which makes the necessary corrections.

Using the new tool, a mechanic could also quickly make repairs or perform assembly jobs even on unfamiliar machines or vehicles.

When used in small series or prototype manufacturing, AR proponets said it could reduce training time while eliminating onerous paperwork. For example, the Eurofighter uses highly complex cable harnesses with up to 500 individual wires. For assembly, the cable harnesses are spread out on boards up to three feet high and nearly twenty feet in length.

"We would have needed 500 pages of paper documentation or more to do this using a conventional production process", said Hans Lukasser, who overseeas AR development at the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. "Add to that the further difficulty that there were numerous versions and changes. Fitters are incapable of keeping all that in their heads".

The problem disappeared with the AR solution: The starting point of the cable is loaded into the data goggles, and depending on how far along the work is, the system guides him through all the manufacturing steps.

The examples are the results of the Arvika research project, an industrial consortium led by the Automation and Drives (A&D) division of Siemens. It has researched the techniques and application possibilities of AR while the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research has contributed more than 10 million euros in promotional funds.

The goal is to develop prototypes of portable and fixed location AR systems for development, production and service in the automotive and aircraft industry, both in systems and mechanical engineering. Last Thursday (July 3), 18 participating research institutes and companies presented their results here.

Participants include: automobile manufacturers such as Audi, BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Ford and Volkswagen; aircraft manufacturers such as EADS and Airbus; equipment manufacturers such as MicroVision, Physoptics and Zeiss; and research institutes including the Fraunhofer Institute and RWTH Aachen. Thirty-seven patent applications were filed during the four years the project ran.

Two Siemens Group divisions are involved in Arvika, Special Products, Training, and Projects Automotive Industry and its Motion Control Systems unit. They also coordinate individual activities as consortium leader. "We were interested in device technology from the beginning, even if it wasn't the goal of the project to develop corresponding devices," said consortium head Wolfgang Friedrich of Siemens.

The expense in terms of equipment is considerable. For example, the solution for supporting cable harness manufacturing requires visual augmentation with the head-mounted display, speech input and output along with a PC with corresponding software. Mobile customer services require wearable PCs.

Solutions are still far from perfect. The quality of data goggles and displays drew general criticism. "The data goggles aren't suitable for using for a whole day," said Lukasser of EADS. Bernd L¼hr of Airbus Germany agreed. "The hardware problems in the goggles and trackers still need to be solved".

L¼hr called for development of a device-specific interface to display large quantities of data on small screens. He said there is also room for improvement in language control. "That's critical for acceptance among users," L¼hr said.

Siemen's Friedrich said hardware also needs to be improved to make AR a reality. Smaller computers are needed that are really "wearable," he said. Above all, they need to operate faster since they are responsible for a wide range of graphic-intensive tasks. "We need more computing power," said Friedrich.

Despite the shortcomings, advocates of the technology see great potential, especially in maintaining complex systems. Friedrich sums up as follows: "AR achieved significant time advantages in automotive service compared with the use of traditional diagnostics and technical information systems, without placing any additional load on the mechanic."

-Christoph Hammerschmidt is editor-in-chief of EE Times.de.