Reflections on the Limited Pervasiveness of Augmented Reality in Industrial Sectors

Abstract

The paper aims to investigate the reasons why Augmented Reality (AR) has not fully broken the industrial market yet, or found a wider application in industries. The main research question the paper tries to answer is: what are the factors (and to what extent) that are limiting AR? Firstly, a reflection on the state of art of AR applications in industries is proposed, to discover the sectors more commonly chosen for deploying the technology so far. Later, based on a survey conducted after that, three AR applications have been tested on manufacturing, automotive, and railway sectors, and the paper pinpoints key aspects that are conditioning its embedding in the daily working life. In order to compare whether the perception of employees from railway, automotive, and manufacturing sectors differs significantly, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) has been used. Later, suggestions are formulated in order to improve these aspects in the industry world. Finally, the paper indicates the main conclusions, highlighting possible future researches to start.

An Automatic Marker–Object Offset Calibration Method for Precise 3D Augmented Reality Registration in Industrial Applications

“…Augmented reality (AR) superimposes rich visual information on the real-world scene, which is intuitively suitable for guiding or training manual operations in the manufacturing industry. However, AR has not fully broken the industrial market yet, because it lacks pervasiveness from the standpoint of industrial users [1], and this paper addresses one related issue that is commonly confronted at the beginning of setting an industrial AR application.…”

Projection-Based Augmented Reality Assistance for Manual Electronic Component Assembly Processes

“…Despite the improvements in the last few decades, the use of augmented reality in industry has not been extended yet due to several reasons, including ergonomics, visual fatigue, content creation, the lack of IT infrastructure, etc. [29]. In fact, ergonomics is the main obstacle for AR glasses; thus, projection based AR systems have been positioned as the alternative because they project data directly in the workspace, leaving the operator's hands free and avoiding discomfort due to motion sickness or vergence-accommodation conflicts [14].…”

Survey: Using Augmented Reality to Improve Learning Motivation in Cultural Heritage Studies

“…In the same vein, it is important to consider different aspects that might affect the user's experience; for example, in [91], they mention that in their application, the virtual content takes too much time to appear in the mobile device. An article by Martinetti [114] mentions that the main factors for the lack of AR pervasiveness are technological/technical limitations (image recognition, internet connection, responsiveness), human interaction (distraction and ergonomic devices) and organizational limitations (handling AR projects, IT infrastructure and financial resources).…”