Trends of Augmented Reality for Agri-Food Applications

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed an increasing interest in deploying state-of-the-art augmented reality (AR) head-mounted displays (HMDs) for agri-food applications. The benefits of AR HMDs to agri-food industry stakeholders (e.g., food suppliers, retail/food service) have received growing attention and recognition. AR HMDs enable users to make healthier dietary choices, experience novel changes in their perception of taste, enhance the cooking and food shopping experience, improve productivity at work and enhance the implementation of precision farming. Therefore, although development costs are still high, the case for integration of AR in food chains appears to be compelling. This review will present the most recent developments of AR HMDs for agri-food relevant applications. The summarized applications can be clustered into different themes: (1) dietary and food nutrition assessment; (2) food sensory science; (3) changing the eating environment; (4) retail food chain applications; (5) enhancing the cooking experience; (6) food-related training and learning; and (7) food production and precision farming. Limitations of current practices will be highlighted, along with some proposed applications.