Introduction to Smart Glasses for Technicians
Putting on a viewer moderately than dragging around a folder with blueprints and manuals: that is what the long run of technicians who’re in command of constructing maintenance might appear like. Using smart glasses, i.e. intelligent goggles, users could navigate to the situation and think about the crucial tasks step-by-step – with the help of Augmented Reality.
How Smart Glasses Work
The glasses would superimpose information over the real-world scenario, thus facilitating the user’s task. He could, for instance, view when a component had last been checked and how much maintenance work is currently needed. The information could be available then and there, where he needs it, moderately than be hidden somewhere in a folder. Professor Markus König, Head of the Chair of Computing Engineering in Bochum, outlines the advantages of using smart glasses for constructing maintenance.
Research and Development
Together together with his team, Markus König develops algorithms that enable such Augmented Reality applications. Worldwide, quite a few groups are researching into similar questions; the team in Bochum focuses specifically on applications in buildings. “At my department, we primarily study the positioning within the room,” he explains. “In order for the glasses to superimpose information in the proper location, they need to know where they’re positioned and what they’re viewing.”
Automatic Positioning in Real Time
The researchers from Bochum are developing their algorithms specifically to enable smart glasses to recognise their location within the room mechanically and in real time based on the pictures recorded by the camera – with none energetic calibration on the user’s part being crucial. Thus, the glasses would give you the chance to discover not only their very own position in a room, but in addition in the complete constructing. Using the manual dot calibration method, this is able to only be possible if the user often recalibrated the glasses or if he used a lot of dots.
Calibration and Accuracy
Currently, calibration is crucial for this purpose, which is achieved with the help of not less than two dots applied in several points within the room and recorded in a digital model. The researchers feed a digital model of the constructing into the system. An algorithm developed in-house compares the image recorded by the camera with the model. To this end, the person wearing the glasses only has to show around once within the room, with a view to provide the glasses with as much visual information on his surroundings as possible. This approach to aligning the system within the room works even when the environment are altered by furniture and accessories and don’t look anything like within the digital model.
Testing the Algorithm
In summer 2019, Markus König’s team tested the algorithm’s capability of precise positioning in a brand new constructing on the Bochum University of Applied Sciences, for which an entire digital 3D model is on the market. They tested this model and their algorithm with a depth imaging camera that generates images much like those created by smart glasses. Automated calibration has currently an accuracy of 20 centimetres, which is sufficient to navigate around a room.
Future Developments
One of the group’s foremost concerns is to be sure that the algorithm works mechanically and in real time – because it already does when run on a Smartphone. Smart glasses have lower computational power than phones, nonetheless, which suggests that the appliance has to change into more efficient with a view to operate easily. The researchers’ other foremost concern is to be prepared for anything unexpected in buildings. “What might occur is that something is installed in a room that shouldn’t be there in line with the blueprint,” says Markus König.
Integrating Step-by-Step Manual
Once the positioning within the room is working and the smart glasses are able to identifying unexpected objects, there is simply yet another thing lacking: the system has to produce the data that technicians require to perform maintenance work – a digital step-by-step manual so to talk. The glasses might, for instance, indicate which screws need to be released first after which specify that a canopy must be removed and which of the components underneath has to get replaced.
Conclusion
The foundations have already been laid for digital assistance using Augmented Reality in constructing maintenance. Although smart glasses are too expensive as yet to be supplied to every handyman or construction employee, once the applications come within sight and the technology catches on, prices may fall. Then, the algorithm from Bochum could be right there to be implemented in real-world applications, revolutionizing the best way technicians perform constructing maintenance. With the potential to extend efficiency, accuracy, and safety, smart glasses are an exciting development in the sector of constructing maintenance, and their future looks promising.
