Virtual and Augmented Reality in Manufacturing

 

There are differing ways of digitally manipulating somebody’s opinion of reality. The easiest is to boost the user’s perception of the external world by adding digital elements to it, a technique often called augmented reality (AR). To illustrate, tourists could see information about historical buildings projected direct onto the buildings’ facades thanks to AR glasses, as happens a Casa Battló in Barcelona. Virtual reality (VR) takes this technology one step further by completely substituting the user’s reality with a digitally-generated one.

 

Recently, the manufacturing sector has figured out the potential of AR and VR in cutting costs and bettering safety and productivity. But precisely what are the applications of this revolutionary technologies in the factory?

 

Speeding up production

 

VR is generally used by forward-thinking manufacturers to improve their approach to predictive analytics. While finding flaws in a product design could take weeks of analyzing data, interacting with the product digitally allows you to pick out a design flaw in just a few minutes.

 

The same process is often applied to a whole production line. By studying the production process in a virtual environment, manufacturers are capable of identify bottlenecks and areas that need improvements. VR also gets rid of the need of building actual full-scale models, which is very convenient in sectors such as aerospace manufacturing, where prototyping can be remarkably expensive.

 

Increasing safety

 

Safety is an additional area where VR can be productively applied. By digitally simulating the production processes, it's possible to spot dangerous maneuvers in advance. Automotive giant Ford, for example, has already reduced employees’ injuries by 70 percent thanks to VR.

 

An identical process can be used to enhance consumers’ safety by simulating the real circumstances in which a product will be used. For example, automotive manufacturers can reproduce various weather and traffic conditions to maximize the safety features of their vehicles.

 

Maintenance and training

 

AR can facilitate maintenance. For example, the information that technicians need when checking or repairing a machine can be projected right on the part on which they are operating. This gets rid of any need to consult charts and instruction manuals, quickening the process. Moreover, the information projected guides the operator, so that even a reasonably inexperienced worker can perform the necessary repair.

 

In a similar manner, AR can be used to deliver expert support without flying specialists from one side of the globe to the other. Any employee equipped with AR glasses can, in fact, be instructed remotely by a specialist, who provides support by plainly simulating the actions that the employee should perform. This technique can also be used to teach new employees. Moreover, both AR and VR can give excellent support in preparing staff for emergency procedures.

 

For Kant, virtual reality was something that exclusively existed in our minds, but at present AR and VR have practical applications that forward-thinking manufacturers are already taking advantage of.

 

This article is originally posted on tronserve.com