Safe and Secure Multi-User Wearable AR Display Management Systems

Wearable AR displays are expensive to purchase and, once they are tested and configured for AR experiences in the enterprise, they are highly valuable, limited resources. One of the issues AR managers encounter when seeking funding to purchase wearable AR displays is that no single user needs to have the display for all their tasks during a shift. In fact, until many more AR experiences are published and accepted, display devices are in use for only a fraction of a work day.

In principle, different workplace roles could use the same AR display during different parts of a process or a shift, thereby distributing the fixed cost of the hardware across multiple users and procedures, and ensuring that the system is not idle for significant time.

This research topic focuses on development of solutions to address two issues that currently prevent wearable AR displays from serving as multi-user resources. The first challenge is an environmental health and safety issue. Unless procedures for cleaning AR displays are tested and proven to the workforce to be effective and safe for them, employees are uncomfortable using a shared personal device. Sensitivity to this issue is even greater since the emergence of Covid-19.

The second issue that presents a barrier is the extension of mobile device management (MDM) to AR displays. There must be easy-to-use, reliable, effective and secure authentication of users who share wearable AR displays. User authentication, without typing in user names and passwords, is required in order that the user wearing the AR display at any time receive only those work orders and information that match the employee’s current work order, level of training and roles on the job site.

The scope of this research straddles two fields that are not easily combined. The two topics could be studied separately.

Stakeholders

Workplace safety managers and officers, IT security managers, employees working in facilities driven by work orders, AR managers, AR experience developers, AR interface designers who would develop prompts and procedures for easy login

Possible Methodologies

This project will require laboratory or bench studies with different sanitation systems, then microbiological studies to determine effectiveness of different procedures. For the authentication and log in systems, development of biometric identification systems would be valuable. These could be compared with commercial log-in interfaces to manage user identification. Further, after the tests in laboratories, there should be research on the use of these approaches with end users for acceptance.

Research Program

This topic is closely related to another proposed AREA Research Agenda topic on end user biometric authentication for security purposes [Tauthentication5-biometric]. The topics could be combined with other AR security topics to develop a full research program.

Miscellaneous Notes

In July 2021, NIST’s Public Safety Communications Research Division has awarded a $1M grant to CyberBytes Foundation (CBF) and XR Saftey Initiative (XRSI) to study feasibility and develop natural AR device user authentication methods that do not require users to perform specific actions (typing passwords, swiping ID cards). XRSI Privacy & Safety Framework will be used as a tool to assess natural AR Authentication methods by first responders and others working in public safety organizations.

Keywords

Sanitation, clean equipment, access control, user authentication, authorization, biometric, safe display cleaning,, safety, sanitation, access control, data protection, security systems, authentication, message authentication, authorization

Research Agenda Categories

Displays, End User and User Experience, Technology

Expected Impact Timeframe

Near

Related Publications

Using the words in this topic description and Natural Language Processing analysis of publications in the AREA FindAR database, the references below have the highest number of matches with this topic:

• De S Ribeiro, M. G., Mazuecos, I. L., Marinho, F., & dos Santos, A. N. G. (2019). Agile Explorations in AR. IECON 2019 – 45th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society.
• Thomas, D., & Holmquist, L. E. (2020). WristAR: A Wrist-Mounted Augmented Reality Interface. 19th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia.
• Speicher, M., Hall, B. D., Yu, A., Zhang, B., Zhang, H., Nebeling, J., & Nebeling, M. (2018). XD-AR. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 2(EICS), 1-24.
• Knierim, P., Wo?niak, P. W., Abdelrahman, Y., & Schmidt, A. (2019). Exploring the Potential of Augmented Reality in Domestic Environments. Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services.
• Lutz, R. R. (2018). Safe-AR: Reducing Risk While Augmenting Reality. 2018 IEEE 29th International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE).

More publications can be explored using the AREA FindAR research tool.

Author

Christine Perey

Last Published (yyyy-mm-dd)

2021-08-31

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