Augmented reality in intelligent automation: an application to support industrial scheduling

Abstract

This paper proposes the application of augmented reality to an intelligent automation platform to support industrial scheduling. A dual-resource scheduling plan is generated for machines and workers, and there is the necessity of coordination between both resources to avoid delays and unexpected errors. The application of augmented reality aims at two focal points: facilitating the workers’ tasks by displaying the step-by-step procedures for each task they are assigned and also monitoring the ongoing work on machines so that workers can be aware when intervention is needed. The main contributions of this work are the fully integration of augmented reality within the cyber-physical systems present in the intelligent automation platform and the enhancement of workers’ capabilities in order to actively follow a scheduling plan. This study includes an experiment that mimics part of a workday and a questionnaire on usability and user experience, which presented excellent results compared to the benchmarks.