A 6-minute read piece that appeared on Medium.com this week by Ajay Sharma is a great run through how augmented reality is transforming the aviation industry. Not only that, but the sources of all this fantastic information are: The AREA, Upskill (an AREA member), and Airbus.

For the visual amongst you, there’s a superb infographic that represents all the productivity and efficiency benefits to the aviation industry that AR is making possible.  What’s more, these are based on real life case studies, not pie in the sky dreaming.  Plenty of examples are discussed in this highly readable piece.

A run down on some of the key benefits of AR in the aviation industry are:

• Error reduction
• Improvement in quality and speed when assembling mock aircraft
• Higher quality maintenance work
• Step by step visual guidance
• Faster repairs
• Improved comms between airfield workers and central offices
• Better, more effective training

Readers will have no doubt noticed that there are many industry reports on a variety of augmented reality markets, making it difficult to know which ones are relevant.

The key findings from the latest industry reports on augmented reality and smart glasses.

Global Market Insights AR Market to hit $50 billion by 2024

Details of the report can be found here.

This is according to a new research report by Global Market Insights, Inc. The shipments are expected to witness more than 75% growth from 2017 to 2024.  Predominantly owing to the rising popularity of smart-glasses.

Global AR Smart Glasses Market Intelligence Report 2017

Details of the report can be found here.

Manufacturers mentioned in the report include: Sony, Google, Microsoft, Epson, Toshiba, Qualcomm, Recon, Vuzix, APX amongst others.

AR Smart Glasses Market analysis report offers the analytical read of the business by learning various factors like market growth, consumption volume, market trends and business price structures throughout the forecast amount from 2017 to 2022.

AR and VR in Healthcare Market Analysis

The global Augmented Reality (AR) & Virtual Reality (VR) in healthcare market size was valued at USD 568.7 million in 2016 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 29.1% during the forecast period. The growing integration of technology & digitalization in healthcare, increasing healthcare expenditure & focus on delivery of efficient health services, and its significance in training healthcare professionals are some of the key factors driving the increasing adoption of AR and VR technologies.

An article on OffshoreTechnology.com discusses how wearables are making safety simpler and asks whether offshore oil and gas industry will get on board with the trend for wearable devices?

Offshore oil and gas platforms are affected by a number of hazards, from gas leaks to extreme weather, and operators have been working for decades to ensure every safety precaution is taken. Now the internet of things (IoT) is offering a new option in the form of wearable safety technologies.

“The direction many companies are following points towards a digitalisation of the workplace, in order to reduce human errors, increase safety and simplify work processes,” explains MIT Design Lab senior design lead Sara Colombo. “Definitely there is much space for the adoption of IoT and connected solutions, and companies need to fully embrace this revolution and to train workers to make them ready to adopt these solutions even further.”

IoT wearables have already begun to play an important role in the digitalisation push across a number of industries. But the unique challenges involved in working offshore mean adoption has been slow in the oil and gas sector.  Can lessons learned in other industries be applied here?

Smart glasses

Making the case for offshore wearables: BP has already begun using IoT wearables in some areas of its operations, such as onshore gas sites. The company’s smart glasses use augmented reality to overlay data and instructions over the worker’s field of vision. They are also able to present sensor information on the lens and communicate this information with a central communication hub.

In 2016, BP’s Digital Innovation Organisation technology principal Blaine Tookey spoke at the Wearables Technology Show about the potential for IoT wearables in the offshore oil and gas sector.

“This is the revolution we’re looking for: the new paradigm that wearables will bring to people working in oil and gas,” said Tookey. “This technology will drive automatic situational awareness, so our field workers will have the right knowledge at the point of work. Enabling a ‘man down’ to be automatically recognised by colleagues and the control room and location sensing will be really valuable.”

Tookey highlighted a range of products he would like to see developed further for the offshore oil and gas industry. These included smart sensors, displays and communication devices that could all be integrated into wearables.

With the current success of the smart glasses in other areas of BP, it is likely that they will make an appearance in the offshore industry where up-to-date information could be invaluable. However, the glasses would need to be modified to work in the wet and windy offshore environment.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is increasingly becoming an integral part of companies—their strategies, their day-to-day activities and their futures. In fact, when 500 executives were recently surveyed by Forbes Insights, more than 90% said IoT would be important to the future of their companies.

Nowhere will IoT be more disruptive than in the industrial sector. Forbes spoke with Rich Rogers, SVP, product and engineering, industrial IoT portfolio at Hitachi Vantara, to learn more about the future of how IoT will affect this broad and influential sector of the global economy – and, for readers interested in augmented reality, Rich Rogers discusses how the IIoT will work with other technologies.

Questions covered include:

• Why is IoT so important for businesses in the industrial sector?
• Where in the industrial sector will IoT likely have the greatest influence?
• How will industrial IoT impact product development?
• How will IoT work with other emerging technologies?
• What’s the “killer application” for industrial IoT?
• How should industrial companies prepare for IoT?

A couple of quotes that may resonate include the following;

“Marc Andreessen nailed it when he famously said that software is eating the world, and right now, every single company needs to become a software company.”

“While the future of IoT is bright, it seems there is still much work to be done. Given the size of the industry now, and projections going forward, IoT has the potential to create a lot of value for organizations that embrace it.”

• Dodge Data & Analytics’ newest SmartMarketReport, Safety Management in the Construction Industry, shows that technology, including BIM, drones and wearables, is having a positive effect onsite in regards to improving safety.
• Produced in partnership with the Center for Construction Research and Training and United Rentals, the report also shows that investment in safety initiatives has positively impacted project budgets, schedules, quality and ability to contract new work.
• In addition, the study addresses leading indicators of a positive safety culture and climate on the jobsite.
• One indicator, safety and health training for supervisors and workers, is up from 2015, whereas recognizing the importance of good communication, another indicator, is down.

Previous indications that augmented reality is being used in construction can be found in previous articles:

1. AR building a better future in construction here 
2. AR’s role in designing and constructing commercial buildings here  

Crunchfish are one of AREA’s new members.  Their latest press release states that in an interview by British Telecom TV, Crunchfish’s Chairman Joachim Samuelsson talks about how the company is digitizing the proximity with technology enabling touchless gesture interaction in AR/VR and with Crunchfish Connected ARTM technology in m-commerce and social applications.

The 8-minute interview was recently made at the conference Internet of Banking & Payments 2017 in London, where Joachim Samuelsson together with partners, were keynote speaker at the opening day of the conference.

Their full press release as published on their website can be read here and is summarised below:

The two technologies offered by Crunchfish:

Smart interaction for enterprise AR

“Crunchfish offers efficient interaction technologies for enterprise AR solutions. Interaction challenges in industrial environments are driving demand for user-friendly ways to engage with AR smart glasses. We offer touchless interaction by gestures and contextual awareness technology that enable users to interact and handle information faster, easier and safer.”

Convenient and secure m-commerce

“Crunchfish Connected ARTM technology enables convenient and secure mobile proximity payment. It also provides proximity marketing in-store or between people outside the store. This unique offering is digitizing in-store m-commerce and it is our firm ambition to provide the drivers for m-commerce applications and set the market technology standard.”

Crunchfish AREA member profile can be seen here.

Readers may be interested in the effects of ageing on the use of handheld augmented reality. This study is the first empirical study that examines older adults’ interaction with augmented reality.  This could potentially have an implication in the workplace and when resource planning and deploying AR technology.

Highlights

A first empirical study that examines older adults’ interaction with augmented reality.

Older adults did not show relative performance deficits in using AR.

No learning effect was found for AR for both older and younger participants.

Older adults expressed a high level of appreciation and satisfaction from the AR application.

Older adults preferred the AR application over a similar, non-AR application.

AR Research

As more AR technology is piloted and deployed, there will be a greater requirement for research. The AREA is conducting research into various key aspects of enterprise Augmented reality technology on an ongoing basis.  Find out more about the last research project that we undertook on security in enterprise wearables here.

Taken from an article that appeared on Mobile AR.  The same approach to augmented reality that some companies use to improve workforce productivity could also make it easier for car owners to operate and maintain their vehicles.

Mercedes-Benz is driving down that new path by releasing an augmented reality owner’s manual called Ask Mercedes for iPhones and iPads.

The app uses image recognition to align the user’s device with the interior of a 2018 E-Class Mercedes-Benz and AR beacons to identify various features. The app then provides additional information about selected features, including video tutorials.

“We are creating a personalized customer experience that goes well beyond the vehicle,” said Britta Seeger, a Daimler AG/Mercedes-Benz marketing executive. “With innovative services such as ‘Ask Mercedes,’ we are further expanding our digital ecosystem.”

While the app is currently only available for iOS in the US, a company spokesperson revealed that an Android version will follow early next year. The app is also scheduled to launch in Malaysia before the end of 2017, and in India and Hong Kong by early 2018, with a version in German expected to follow soon thereafter.

Genesis at Hyundai, also released a virtual guide earlier this year.  There are many ways in which AR is being used in the automotive industry. Why not take a look at The AREA case studies for further examples?

W3C has partnered with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) to define an Augmented Reality Pilot project. The aim is to enable the seamless integration of real world, geospatial, and web data — as part of the OGC Innovation Program.

The W3C says that I”n this program, we expect to validate existing W3C Standards and to lay foundations for future standards work by gathering sponsors and participants to develop models, interfaces, and architecture descriptions. This preliminary work, helping to build prototypes and systems, should highlight the interoperability challenges that standards can address.”

Source article link here

Lenovo Group Ltd. has teamed up with China Electronics Standardization Institution to launch an Industrial Big Data Application Alliance to support the utilization of industrial big data.

Under the alliance announced Friday in Beijing, over 80 companies from the fields of artificial intelligence, big data, Internet of Things, cloud computing, augmented reality, virtual reality and robotics have joined the alliance, including Tencent Cloud, TCL Corp and Haier Group Corp.

The alliance will aim to standardize industrial big data, push digital data modelling of the industrial chain, develop professional algorithm to meet corporate demand for high accuracy data analysis, as well as focus on the visualization of data.

Lenovo’s CEO, Yang Yuanqing, said that the establishment of the alliance will help upgrade and transform the manufacturing sector.

At the same time, Lenovo also launched its Industrial Internet Platform, aiming to support over 100,000 companies in the next five years.

Industrial big data is considered the foundation of smart manufacturing, and the newly established alliance is in line with the Chinese government’s policy to develop the smart manufacturing sector. In 2015, the state council issued the China Smart Manufacturing 2025 plan, with an emphasis on the application of smart manufacturing, especially for smart devices and smart products. Later in the same year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and Standardization Administration issued a guideline saying the smart manufacturing standardization system should be completed in five years.

Read the whole news item here.