Evaluating Added Value of Augmented Reality to Assist Aeronautical Maintenance Workers—Experimentation on On-field Use Case

Abstract

Augmented Reality (AR) technology facilitates interactions with information and understanding of complex situations. Aeronautical Maintenance combines complexity induced by the variety of products and constraints associated to aeronautic sector and the environment of maintenance. AR tools seem well indicated to solve constraints of productivity and quality on the aeronautical maintenance activities by simplifying data interactions for the workers. However, few evaluations of AR have been done in real processes due to the difficulty of integrating the technology without proper tools for deployment and assessing the results. This paper proposes a method to select suitable criteria for AR evaluation in industrial environment and to deploy AR solutions suited to assist maintenance workers. These are used to set up on-field experiments that demonstrate benefits of AR on process and user point of view for different profiles of workers. Further work will consist on using these elements to extend results to AR evaluation on the whole aeronautical maintenance process. A classification of maintenance activities linked to workers specific needs will lead to prediction of the value that augmented reality would bring to each activity.

A review of augmented reality systems and their effects on mental workload and task performance

“…This may not necessarily translate into an overall lower workload rating, but as a lower rating of the mental demand subscale or lower extraneous cognitive load. By freeing up more resources, operators can direct them into other efforts that is, performing the task, which then translates into improved performance [8] . As is suggested by the CLT: when extraneous load is decreased, more cognitive resources can be focused on generation of schemas, problem-solving, or in this case, performing the task.…”

“…Based on findings from the review of the selected studies, generally, AR can reduce mental workload by facilitating the perception of instruction. AR's primary capability to augment relevant virtual information upon the real world enhances perception and understanding of information in instances where the operator would have to refer to secondary sources of information, such as a secondary display or paper-based instructions [8] , [12] . The extent of the effectiveness of AR systems in reducing mental workload and enhancing task performance is also affected by: type of AR device used [29] , relevance of content, AR presentation [30] , [45] , user characteristics, task characteristics, and environmental characteristics.…”

“…This ability to convey spatially and temporally meaningful information in real-time makes AR technology a promising “option to support knowledge-intensive works” [1] . AR applications have been adopted in various application domains such as education [2] , [3] , medicine [4] , manual assembly and manufacturing [5] , [6] , online retail [7] , maintenance [6] , [8] , [9] , and in-vehicle map navigation [10] , [11] . By using AR to provide visual guidance and task-relevant information where and when needed, cognitive workload could be reduced, users would be subjected to lower cognitive demands and thus improve task performance.…”

“…Indeed, some studies reported positive effects of AR use on both mental workload and task performance [12] , [13] . However, there are also studies that reported positive effects on mental workload yet negative effects on task performance [8] , [14] . Whereas some studies reported insignificant differences in task performance and even increases in cognitive workload when using AR [1] , [10] .…”

Augmented Reality Application in Manufacturing Industry: Maintenance and Non-destructive Testing (NDT) Use Cases

“…The next step is to extend the experiment to other tasks related to aeronautical maintenance so that the obtained results can be generalized. You can find more details on this study in the paper we presented in 2019 at the EuroVR conference [31]. Thus, thanks to this pilot project, Safran plans to deploy Augmented Reality in other MRO departments in Asia and the Americas, and to extend it to other services such as quality control.…”