Which Aviation Groups are Providing AR and VR Solutions?

Celebi Aviation Holding are setting up an aviation academy in Turkey. The Celebi Aviation Academy in Turkey being certified by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and Training Validation Program (TVP). Recognising the academy as an official Center of Excellence in Training and Development. Allowing for the student to virtually sit airside, along many Airbus and Boeing planes. Covering various elements of commercial aviation, from pre arrival too post departure inspection. The various scenarios presented give aviation students a safe environment Letting students find solutions to identified faults. Allowing for difficult environments. Such as different environmental conditions, under LVO (low visibility operations) and night time operations. Japan Airlines teaming with Asia’s largest manufacturer Tecknotrov and Quatar Airlines to invest in more autonomous training for pilots and engineers. Expectations for AR and VR in aviation training has always had a strong relation; both recently and throughout previous generations of the technology. So, it comes as no surprise that, with the well respected foundation between the mixed reality space and aviation. The predicted growth rate of the AR and VR aviation markets is expected to be more than $1372 million by the end 2025. It is important to note the practical strides is where AR and VR fit into the expected processes for a workers day to day routine. With solutions for almost every team member involved in the flyers journey. AR offers flight attendants and handlers a paperless workflow, obviously aiding with cross contamination in post pandemic, busy work environment. SATS, the chief ground-handling and in-flight catering service provider at Singapore Changi Airport. Having integrated M300 smart glasses to 600 of their employees. Getting rid of pen and paper methods during luggage handling. Allowing for quick QR scanning, saving a reported 15 minutes for each flight.

What Can Passengers Expect?

Passengers are also become part of this landscape; VR can offer flyers new forms of entertainment during their long journey. Airfrance are partnered with SkyLights. A VR inflight entertainment group working from San Fransico. Together they have created a unique headset for Airbus A340 flights. Skylights boast a massive success rate with passengers using their VR entertainment headsets during flights. With a 90% recommendation rate and 4h average usage time among passengers. Lufthansa are also innovating for their passengers. Creating a 360-degree immersive experience for passengers to watch while travelling. With worldwide prospects for flyers and aviation workers, when flyers return to airports in mass. They could be presented with more AR and VR options than ever. Making the return to the runway a breeze.

During the experimental program, select ambulances are given access to a Vuzix M400, lightweight smart glasses capable of projecting virtual images over the real-world, which EMTs can use to convey critical information to hospitals before their arrival via two-way audio and video calls.

By allowing doctors and nurses access to a patients vital signs, ECG readouts, and facial expressions in real-time, Vuzix claims that various departments can perform examinations and preliminary medical treatment before the ambulance even arrives. Hospital staff can also advice EMTs during in-transit emergency treatments, such as a blood transfusion or surgery.

“Among their expanding healthcare uses, Vuzix smart glasses can be an important life-saving tool for EMTs that require critical interaction and support from the hospitals to which they are headed,” said Paul Travers, President and Chief Executive Officer at Vuzix, in an official release.

“Our glasses are lightweight, comfortable and completely wireless, making them ideal to be used alongside the other head-mounted equipment EMTs must wear. We look forward to seeing an expansion of this trial by its participants, as well as adoption for similar usage by other providers in Japan and around the world.”

Vuzix AR smart glasses are currently being tested in select ambulances operating out of the Shunto Izu Fire Department in Japan, with plans to expand to additional ambulances in the future. The collaborative effort is being spear-headed by Juntendo University, Shizuoka Hospital, the Shunto Izu Fire Department, and AVR Japan Co., Ltd.

What is Multi-Model Loading?

We’ve recently increased our Augmented Reality (AR) capabilities to include multi-model loading, to meet the evolving industry requirements and customer needs for XR. Users can now load multiple models at once into the same scene, making the technology even more flexible.

Previously, only one model at a time could be loaded into an AR session. However, with multi-model loading, users can now visualize and mark-up multiple models at once. This gives users greater flexibility in their everyday working processes. Allowing them to quickly alternate between looking at one model and another to see how they compare, line-up or fit the available space. Pre-defined digital layouts that were previously only available in Mixed Reality and Virtual Reality are also now available in Augmented Reality. With Theorem-XR supporting multiple devices and data types, and only needing to prepare data once, this additional functionality in AR is closing the gap for what devices can be used in XR use cases.

How is it Used? Real Augmented Reality Examples

Factory layouts are an excellent example of a use case where Theorem-AR’s new multi-model loading is vital.

Being able to load pre-defined layouts on your smartphone or tablet enables you to work on much larger use cases such as defining shop floor plans in XR. You can visualize the relative scenery, components, and poseables, all on your handheld device.

It also gives you a good idea of how people will interact with a proposed factory layout. Including identifying what is in reach from a certain position, determining whether areas are accessible as well as assessing any risks. This can all be done in a re-configurable environment, allowing users to completely plan and adjust their layouts from the desktop before reviewing in AR.

The advantage of having this feature in Augmented Reality is that you can place the equipment models in your current environment. This means that you can visualize solid models in the room the equipment is planned to be in. The ability to analyze a proposed layout in this way means users can ensure layouts are correct before attempting to implement them. And since AR doesn’t require expensive headsets it’s easy to adopt for everyone involved.

Enhance Your Design Processes

Another feature that is improved by multi-model loading is the ability to snap to a physical object with a digital model. With this feature, a physical object can be used as a reference point in order to automatically overlay a digital version. Users can now also arrange other parts around the digital model on desktop, which will appear when using this Snap To feature in AR. This allows users to test space requirements for a collection of parts using one part as a reference.

This combined with existing features, such as the mark-up tool to add notes and drawings, opens up the opportunity for engineers to collaborate with each other by identifying and easily sharing obstacles or flaws within a design.

To Recap

Extended reality is an excellent tool to remotely visualize design data from anywhere, and AR makes adoption even easier thanks to only requiring a handheld device such as a smartphone or tablet, which we all have access to. With the addition of multi-model loading users can now do even more with their data in AR; all while using a familiar technology that requires minimal training to use.

Factory layout planning is the best example of this, with users now having the ability to visualize layouts in the real world. Additionally, with design reviews, users can review multiple models from anywhere in the world.

Multi-model loading provides more options to address new use cases with AR, using devices that everyone has access to. Working around 3D design data has never been easier.

Liang Guan, General Manager at Rokid, enthusiastically stated:
“Numerous top-tech companies currently explore AR, XR, or the metaverse. As early as 2016, Rokid has been proactively expanding our AR product pipeline across leading technological areas of optics, chips, smart voice, and visual image. Today, we have X-Craft deployed in over 70 regions and Air Pro has been widely used in 60+ museums around the world. Moving forward, Rokid will keep delivering real value to enterprises through its line of AR products.”

Rokid products empower the frontline workforce, providing real-time analysis, views, and documents to the control center. Many media and participants were surprised after trying Rokid products. Saying that the various control modes provided by Rokid AR glasses are very convenient for users to operate and can effectively improve work efficiency.

Rokid X-Craft, demonstrated live at the AWE 2022, has officially received ATEX Zone 1 certification from TUV Rheinland Group. Becoming the world’s first explosion-proof, waterproof, dustproof, 5G, and GPS-supported XR device. This is not only a great advance in AR and 5G technology but also a breakthrough in AR explosion-proof applications in the industrial field. Many users at the event said after the trial that safety headsets are comfortable to wear and are highly competitive products in the market. It not only effectively ensures the safety of front-end staff, but also helps oil and gas fields increase production capacity.

Rokid Air Pro, a powerful binocular AR glasses, features voice control to help you enjoy a wide variety of media including games, movies, and augmented reality experiences. Rokid Glass 2, provided real-time analysis, views, and documents to the control center, and successfully improved traffic management and prevention to ensure the long- term stability of the city.

The unprecedented need to develop a workforce that can build and service electric and autonomous vehicles and develop the cybersecurity to protect them is the driving force behind the new consortium.

Industry partners involved are BMW, Michelin, Bosch, Daimler, Proterra and Volvo.

The consortium is named “Collaborative Research: REVVED,” short for Revolutionizing Electric Vehicle Education, is receiving $2.83 million from the National Science Foundation to fund the project.

One of the main goals is to strengthen learning and retention among students from rural areas, veterans and students who are from groups underrepresented in the workforce.

Digital learning systems are especially attractive for students who are non-traditional and underrepresented in the workforce, researchers said.

Mary Thornley, president of Trident Technical College, said REVVED addresses a critical need in South Carolina and across the country.

“Our country has an unprecedented need, the need for a new generation of talent to respond to international competition for an automotive workforce with up-to-date skill sets required for the manufacturing and servicing of electric and autonomous vehicles,” Thornley said. “We are excited to work with strong partners to create that talent to ensure state and national competitiveness.”

Readers can find out more about this new initiative by reading the original article on Clemsen News.

Hundreds of the world’s most profitable and well-known companies are already using augmented, virtual, and mixed reality (XR) to deliver the benefits of digitization to the modern workforce. These organizations are seeing ROI in the form of faster training, shorter design cycles, higher quality, less downtime, reduced waste, and increased customer satisfaction.

Hear from those driving XR and other emerging technologies in enterprise at the 2022 Augmented Enterprise Summit when it returns in-person October 18-20 at the newly renovated Town & Country Resort Hotel in San Diego. As always, the event will feature a world-class lineup of enterprise end users along with the largest curated expo of enterprise-ready XR solutions. Organizations at every stage of adoption will get to hear how the world’s biggest companies are leveraging XR, try out the top hardware/software, and connect across industry lines.

“[AES] has consolidated its position as the nexus of the growing enterprise XR ecosystem, with the ability to bring together both augmented reality companies and the large enterprises that are now testing and implementing XR solutions.” – Forbes

The Speakers

Leading innovators from companies like Abbott, Bank of America, Con Edison, DuPont, Ford, GM, Kohler, Marathon Petroleum, and Ulta Beauty will share insight into adopting and deploying XR and related emerging technologies for applications such as remote support, collaboration, work instructions, training, design, marketing, safety, and sales.

The Program

The comprehensive educational program includes case studies across industry verticals with deep discussions on specific immersive applications, best practices, security, enabling technologies like 5G and AI, IIoT, the Metaverse, and more.

The Exhibit

Get hands-on in the carefully curated expo of AR smart glasses, MR/VR headsets, body-worn sensors, exoskeletons, and other connected devices ready for deployment today, along with the platforms and technologies that power them.

For information and tickets, visit www.augmentedenterprisesummit.com. Early bird rates expire August 29. Attendees are encouraged to register early as space is limited.

Official Event Brochure: https://augmentedenterprisesummit.com/aes-2022-brochure/

Managed and hosted by long standing AREA partner BrainXChange – see their partner page.

The Telecoms and Media landscape could be perfectly poised to benefit from the advantages extended reality offers. XR has already proven itself as a powerful tool for communication and collaboration, capable of connecting people like never before. This gives Telecoms companies a new landscape to experiment with when it comes to offering communication services to brands.

At the same time, as the communications space grows increasingly complex, with endless new technology appearing on the market all the time, XR can empower employees too. The right solutions can improve training opportunities, enhance day-to-day processes, and support businesses in achieving better CX outcomes.

The question is, how do you build a business case for XR in telecoms and media your shareholders and business leaders can get behind?

Step 1: Consider the Evolving Industry

Companies in the media and telecoms landscape need to stay on the cutting edge if they want to survive in today’s competitive landscape. This means offering services and support relevant to the needs of their customers. Even if your company might not be using XR solutions in-house, it may be important to offer these tools to customers and clients.

For instance, telecoms companies could offer access to XR app-building environments, and other accompanying technologies for brands hoping to step into the XR world. Things like 5G connectivity will be particularly important for vendors building new XR landscapes.

As concepts like the metaverse grow more appealing, and companies look for more ways to interact with their client using immersive technology, media and telecoms companies will need to ensure they’re considering the part they can play in the XR environment. Whether this means offering marketing campaigns in XR, sales strategies enhanced by XR, or 5G connectivity for immersive experiences, don’t fall behind the competition.

Step 2: Find Opportunities to Improve Operations

In any industry, the hunt is always on for ways to improve the efficiency and productivity of teams. In the telecoms landscape, an evolving number of tools and services in the landscape is leading to significant complexity in the workplace. Inspecting, maintaining, and repairing devices at scale can require a lot of investment in talent and travel.

With XR, companies can improve their daily operations using a range of different tools. For instance, an AR or MR solution will allow experts to assess a piece of technology from a distance, allowing for quicker inspection processes with massive cost savings. Additionally, the telecom sector can also use extended reality environments to help with the repair and maintenance of undersea, and underground cables, as well as other advanced networking tools.

Identifying issues in a virtual environment can allow for the use of automated systems and extra guidance to technicians in the breakdown area. This means problems with the communication ecosystem can be solved more rapidly, leading to better customer experiences.

Step 3: Highlight Opportunities for Improved CX

Speaking of customer experiences, XR offers an excellent opportunity for all kinds of companies to take advantage of new interactions with customers. In the media landscape, experts can create engaging AR ads and VR experiences for customers on behalf of companies, taking full advantage of the evolving metaverse and virtual event space.

In the telecoms space, companies can use XR to sell to customers and support clients like never before. XR can enhance the entire customer journey, starting with immersive demonstrations of how products and services might work, and continuing to the use of VR manuals for users learning how to access a new system. Companies can even build entire immersive onboarding experiences, where customers are prepped for success with insights into how each tool or service works.

With XR, it’s even possible to improve long-term customer service, by ensuring engineers and technicians can walk customers through strategies on how to fix common problems in a more powerful digital or augmented environment. This also saves companies money when it comes to sending technicians to field locations.

Step 4: Explore The Benefits of Better Collaboration

XR is an incredible tool for collaboration, allowing teams to share a space where they can connect over ideas, see reports and analytics presented in a range of different formats, and interact with digital assets. With XR, telecoms companies can connect specialists and experts working from locations all over the world in a shared environment.

A telecoms or media brand could provide a user with a pair of AR or MR glasses connected to a specialist who can offer guidance and support in real-time when the user is working on a complex task. This allows for better teamwork without having to have multiple people present in the same environment. The same technology can even help with the support of field service technicians.

In XR, experts can learn about technologies in a collaborative environment, discuss trends using visual insights, and work together on solving complex problems like service outages in certain data centers. The XR environment powers a future of intelligent workplace experiences for professionals who might not always work in the same physical environment.

Step 5: Look at Potential Cost Savings

Initially, implementing a disruptive new technology like XR into your business might seem like an expensive process. However, the reality is that the investment can pay off significantly in the long-term. For instance, using innovative environments for VR collaboration to bring your teams together on complex challenges can reduce the need for expensive travel.

Making sure your agents can access VR environments to plan fixes for complex telecommunications technology, then send the information they collect to engineers on the front line can reduce the downtime of various essential tools. This can also reduce the amount of money telecoms companies lose in honouring SLA agreements with customers, while improving customer satisfaction.

XR can also give you a powerful way to stand out among the competition, meaning you don’t have to work as hard to capture new potential customers for your brand. XR doesn’t just save money, it can help brands make more money too.

As manufacturing and industrial companies continue to deal with ever-growing demands from their customers, the need for innovative technology in the industry is greater than ever. Capable of assisting with everything with crucial training initiatives to faster prototyping, extended reality represents a phenomenal opportunity for brands in the industrial sector.

Already, we’ve begun to see a number of leading companies experimenting with new opportunities in the XR space. Whether it’s bringing teams together in virtual reality to create and interact with digital twins or products, or supporting collaboration through augmented reality, there are no shortage of options out there.

Today, we’re going to be sharing just a few insightful stories from innovators in the XR landscape working with manufacturing and industrial brands.

Microsoft and Airbus

Innovator in the aerospace technology and manufacturing landscape, partnered with Microsoft on their journey into the extended reality landscape. The pioneering company wanted to transform traditional industrial processes involved with the creation of commercial and military aircraft, launch and satellite vehicles through mixed reality.

Using Microsoft’s Azure MR environment and HoloLens 2, Airbus has been able to successfully accelerate and enhance the design of aircrafts, while improving the functionality and safety of the team. Intelligent solutions like Azure Remote Rendering even allows the company to bring team members together for a higher level of collaboration in a mixed reality environment, without compromising on safety and security.

Holo-Light and Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems

In the manufacturing and industrial landscape, the measurement and quality control aspects of dealing with various components can often be a time-consuming process, particularly for companies building submarines. Fortunately, the Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems company discovered a new way to enhance the performance of their teams through augmented reality, with Holo-Light.

The solution from Holo-light gives the Marine manufacturing brand the opportunity to tap into a comprehensive AR package consisting of all the software and hardware required to perform ultra-precise work in an AR environment. According to the case study produced by Holo-Light the new work process is now significantly more streamlined and convenient for the engineers.

Kognitiv Spark and Surepoint

The Surepoint Group, an industrial contractor specializing in construction, manufacturing electrical and instrumentation services, operates in various sectors across the globe. Surepoint has field locations throughout the US and Canada, as well as offering services to client sites on a broader scale. To deliver consistently exceptional support and speed in this space, the Surepoint team decided it was time to upgrade its solution with RemoteSpark.

The RemoteSpark mixed reality remote worker support tool allows subject matter experts and field workers to collaborate and connect securely through an AV connection. Experts can make annotations in the field of view of engineers, share files, and even create animated 3D holograms. All of these tools allow workers to resolve issues faster, while keeping technology hands-free.

RealWear and Total

Total, a leading energy company producing and marketing all manner of fuels, natural gas and low-carbon electricity services across more than 130 countries, engaged with the RealWear team on their strategy for industrial digital transformation. In the past, when complex equipment required repairs or maintenance, Total had to slow its operations to a halt to bring in specialist experts.

Now, RealWear headsets with Microsoft Teams access allow Total to connect their onsite workers to subject matter experts wherever they are, for faster equipment diagnostics and repairs. The result is eliminated travel costs for visiting experts, improved collaboration for multiple teams, and better equipment maintenance and repair times.

Taqtile and PBC Linear

PBC Linear, a company committed to making linear motion products, decided to work with Taqtile when they discovered new opportunities for digital transformation in their business. For PBC Linear, Taqtile presented an opportunity to create comprehensive training and instruction experiences for manufacturing staff who needed help getting to know difficult pieces of machinery.

The Manifest AR technology from Taqtile allows the company to capture the specific knowledge and machine instructions from seasoned employees to guide newer members of staff in the industry. The result is an 80% reduction int raining time and a significant reduction in the number of errors made within the manufacturing space.

Varjo and Tenstar

Varjo, a market leader in extended reality solutions for the modern landscape, recently partnered with Tenstar to help teach manufacturing and industrial professionals how to use various pieces of heavy machinery in real-life situations. The immersive virtual reality training experience helps professionals to gain new skills at a rapid pace, without putting them at risk.

According to Varjo’s case study, the solution means that customers can now spend up to 90% less compared to real-machine training, and trainees can repeat tasks more often, leading to fewer accidents and more experiences. Trainees also get to practice in real-life scenarios that would be dangerous to access in the real world.

Unity and the Manufacturing Technology Center

The Manufacturing Technology Center, or MTC is a research and technology organisation belonging to the High Value Manufacturing Catapult. The company has an impact on a number of industrial sectors worldwide, and like many manufacturing groups, is reliant on rapid transformation to stay ahead of the competition.

With Unity’s help, the MTC was able to find cutting-edge solutions for creating high-value manufacturing firm blueprints using innovative real-time 3D projects. The Unity landscape meant MTC could eliminate a host of common project roadblocks, with issue resolution of 24 hours or less.

At the same time, the company also enhanced the product design and development process for clients and opened doors for better collaboration among internal teams.

Matterport and SEACOMP

A company committed to supplying manufacturing solutions for customers across the industrial, consumer goods, and medicals industry, SEACOMP has a huge presence worldwide. Unfortunately, during the pandemic, the company’s employees were no longer able to visit customers and show clients or prospects product demos.

With Matterport, the company was able to create new digital twins of their offices and manufacturing equipment into a digital world. This means SEACOMP can now give prospects and clients a full 3D walkthrough of the factor’s equipment without the time, costs, and risks of travel.

But before we get into that, let’s take a look into how the technology is being used by engineering and manufacturing companies across the world.

How are engineering companies utilising XR?

As the technologies continue to evolve, users of Augmented (AR), Mixed (MR) and Virtual Reality (VR) – collectively known as Extended Reality (XR), are discovering new and more efficient ways to enhance their engineering processes.

Companies are seeing huge reductions in time spent and travel costs, and are using the technologies on a day-to-day basis.

Learn how Valiant TMS and Medtronic got started with their Enterprise-XR journey’s

So, where to start?

Identify your use case

Having the intention to introduce AR, MR or VR into your organisation is fine, but the starting point can often be the trickiest hurdle to jump over.

Before you even think about investing in hardware or software, you should be identifying your use case. After that, you should try to understand how to get the most value from it, and which devices and applications you may require.

Look for challenges and pain points

One of the best approaches is to take a look at your current design cycle. If you’ve already released a product, here are a few questions that you could be asking yourself:

• What challenges were identified?
  • Were there any late design changes in a particular area or department?
  • Were there any recalls? If so, why?
  • Were there limited or out of date physical prototypes?
  • Did you not get chance to test enough?
  • Was there a lack of communication or collaboration between teams?

Try to look at your business cycle, look at where the challenges lie, and understand the pain points. That’s where you’ll want to be focusing on utilizing XR because that’s where you’re going to get the most ROI.

Accepted benefits of XR

For some insight, here are some of the most common benefits that engineering and manufacturing companies are seeing from Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality technologies:

Improved inspections – By taking the virtual model and placing it over the physical model, engineers can perform more accurate quality checks by inspecting the tooling and components prior to being shipped. It ensures that the parts are being shipped as they were designed. Some companies have even reduced inspection time by up to 60%.

Reduced travel – By working collaboratively and remotely with colleagues from other locations, engineers can look at a prototype and interrogate it in real time. By simply removing the need to travel (and the costs associated), some companies have seen clear ROIs within months.

De-risking – By seeing your 3D designs in detail, at full scale and in-context, you can be confident that your designs will be going to production as complete as you can possibly make them.

Speed of change – In the majority of cases, there will be a last-minute change to your design, causing delays of weeks or even months. With the ability to simply put on your headset and host a collaborative session, you can get your team together within 10 minutes to iron out the issue.

Here are some useful tools to help understand the value of XR:

AREA ROI Calculator – An easy-to-use tool to understand potential cost savings and other business benefits when deploying AR, MR and/or VR.

Microsoft HoloLens 2 Estimator – Instantly calculate and receive a high-level estimate of the total economic impact of the Microsoft HoloLens 2, including cost savings, productivity hours saved, and more.

Summary

Having a use case with a strong ROI will vastly increase the likelihood of getting your executive buy-in to really kickstart your XR journey. For more advice on the topic, you can listen to the full discussion from Theorem specialists on How to Prepare for Your XR Use Case [On-Demand Webinar].