The Wireless Broadband Alliance, an organization that supports the adoption of next generation Wi-Fi services across the Wi-Fi ecosystem, said that it will be testing several use cases on a Wi-Fi 6 network at Mettis Aerospace’s 27-acre facility in West Midlands starting in the second half of 2019.

Use cases under consideration include multi-stream live video monitoring, real time energy monitoring, ultra-reliable low latency communications with sensors on critical systems, and augmented reality.

UK-based Mettis Aerospace designs and manufactures precision-forged, machine and sub-assembled components, primarily for the aerospace and defense industry. Its clients include Airbus, Boeing, and Rolls-Royce.

WBA said the West Midlands region was selected as the UK’s 5G Testbed for manufacturing and security by the UK Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport.

The trials, managed by the WBA and Mettis Aerospace, and supported by WBA members including British Telecom, Boingo, Broadcom, BSG Wireless, CableLabs, Cisco, HPE Aruba and Intel, will demonstrate the role of Wi-Fi 6 in the broader 5G ecosystem and will serve as an example to industrial manufacturers moving to industry 4.0.

Key points from the blog include:

• AR technology is fundamentally changing manufacturing
• How well companies embrace and adapt to massive changes in manufacturing is crucial to their future
• 28 % of companies surveyed in a recent PwC study reported that they have implemented, piloted, or planned to implement AR and/or VR technology
• The value of AR and VR solutions are seen as maintenance, service, and quality assurance
• Other key areas of efficiency of AR in manufacturing are self-learning and training
• The learning from the PwC studies aligns with what Atheer is seeing from the strategic planning efforts of their customers

Even as we celebrate our recent successes with Shell and Colgate Palmolive, we’ve only just begun our efforts to bring HMT devices to every industrial customer around the world,” said Andy Lowery, Cofounder and CEO of RealWear. “Rocky brings 20 years of senior leadership experience in enterprise sales and marketing to RealWear. He combines an uncanny knowledge of strategy with the discipline to execute on the right ideas at the right time. Rocky will be instrumental in our efforts to scale global sales at RealWear.”

Rocky is widely recognized as a leader in scaling global sales. Most recently, Rocky led the ecommerce business unit at Vesta Corporation. Prior to that, he was SVP Sales for SheerID, a digital verification SaaS provider for ecommerce merchants. He also served as VP Global Sales for Ondot Systems, an international supplier of payment card management products for consumers and card issuers. Rocky’s nine years of experience in sales and product marketing at Hewlett-Packard shaped his experience and prepared him for his new position with RealWear.

Read the full original press release.

See RealWear Inc’s AREA member profile 

To find out about how to join The AREA please see membership information

Augmented Reality (AR) is rapidly growing and expanding into countless business and industrial applications.

Spatial computing is used as a broad term to describe the way humans interact with computers in the same surrounding. In other words, in spatial computing machines occupy the same space as humans rather than being contained to one single location.

According to Markets and Markets, the Augmented Reality market is expected to reach $60,55 billion worldwide by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 40.29 percent during the forecast period comprised between 2018 and 2023. Increasing interest and investments from top technology giants are directly linked to driving the growth of the AR market.

Overall, the AR software market will lead the growth by 2023 thanks to the increasing use of smartphones, tablets, and other devices in consumer, commercial, and enterprise used for the implementation of the AR technology.

While there is an increasing demand for AR in healthcare, retail, and e-commerce, there is plenty of emerging opportunity and increasing demand for AR in architecture and the enterprise industry.

AR is a game changer applicable in almost every industry sector.

The article moves on to discuss smart city planning and building with the use of Augmented Reality technology.

In the construction industry, for instance, immersive technology can help in the development of smart cities with Augmented Reality becoming an integral part of the construction process.

Cities collect huge amounts and data. Augmented Reality can make that data visible. Using AR, architects can find a more creative and straightforward way to show urban planners how their projects are going to look like in real life by creating an engaging visualization, triggering faster decision making.

It can be building a new transportation center or the next skyscraper in a city; in all cases using Augmented Reality makes the job easier.

Now with the help of Augmented Reality platforms for business, it is easy to design smart city projects. WakingApp is a professional Augmented Reality studio that enables professionals such as builders and architects to leverage budding technology. Projects can be visualized before building it which avoids a lot of mistakes.

What is interesting about the WakingApp technology is that developers and designers don’t need to have any previous coding experience in order to take advantage of the toolset. They can rapidly create quality AR experiences to showcase construction projects with even a limited amount of coding experience.

The MLM Group, an engineering, environmental, and building control design consultancy was able to transform its presentations by using WakingApp AR technology to showcase their projects to customers beyond the blueprint using the AR Studio.

“Augmented Reality experiences add cost-saving value to construction projects and make the entire building process more efficient because right from the start, engineers and architects are able to create a detailed, interactive example of the end project,” Matan Libis, CEO of WakingApp told Interesting Engineering.

“AR provides builders, and their clients, with a level of understanding that far exceeds any blueprints or 3D models, and often AR experiences can be created in a fraction of the time, offering users both practicality and efficacy,” he said.

Microsoft’s Mixed Reality HoloLens headset can bring 2D blueprints to life. In the construction site, workers can combine 3D models with real time data. They can see problems and faults in the real world and fix them before ahead of building.

This speeds up construction processes and elevates the quality of the end product. Using this technology construction workers can elevate their skills to a new level, augmenting their knowledge and using it to make better decisions.

Royal Dutch Shell plans to connect its frontline field workers with back office expertise through the use of a new augmented reality (AR) hard hat. The hands-free AR wearable comes with a built-in computer that’s voice-controlled and equipped with a micro-display and a camera. This makes it possible for Shell’s workers in the field to send pictures and video back to the office in real-time and receive over-the-shoulder assistance from remote operations experts when making repairs and doing work on sensitive equipment around the globe.

Shell teamed up with Honeywell to deploy these helmets from RealWear, which are the first wearable device certified to operate in hazardous conditions where explosive gases are present. The oil and gas giant has already field tested the devices and will now roll them out to 24 operational sites around the world.

“Just as laptops and mobile phones are standard for desk workers, voice command and augmented reality for wearable computers will become commonplace for field staff in our industry, driving safety and productivity,” says Michael Kaldenbach, lead for Shell Digital Realities, a center of excellence for the company that focuses on AR, virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR).

The move marks another step in Shell’s journey to fold in AR, VR, and MR into operational and training environments through its Digital Realities group. Last fall the firm announced it was working with EON Reality to develop a global immersive training program that can be scaled across numerous industrial facilities. Developing an immersive training platform makes it possible for Shell to use ‘digital twins’ to recreate any training environment and put it in a module that can be offered on-demand and in numerous languages. This breaks down a lot of training barriers that enterprises like Shell face in training a global workforce operating in very exacting technical environments.

“Operational training lends itself well for virtual reality,” Kaldenbach said at the time. ““Shell is on a digital transformation journey. AR/VR is a key linking technology in that helps us visualize data and environments and make them tangible for our operational staff.”

According to estimates from analysis at Statista, the worldwide market for AR and VR is expected to grow from a projected $20.4 billion this year to $192.7 billion by 2022. According to the recent 2019 Augmented and Virtual Reality Survey Report from Perkins Coie, startup investors are bullish on the prospects of extended reality technologies. Around 90 percent of them think AR, VR, and XR technology will be as ubiquitous as mobile devices by 2025. They rank manufacturing and industrial applications like those Shell uses AR for to be the fourth most relevant environment for extended reality to take off, behind gaming, healthcare and medical devices, and education.

Meantime, experts with Accenture Labs say that extended reality technology “will be critical to the enterprise of the future.” They say that applications like Shell will act as the spear tip for greater extended reality usage across all industries in the near future.

“Indeed, industries with high-risk working environments, such as energy, manufacturing or construction, are already reaping the benefits of immersive learning,” an Accenture Labs report detailed. “Now, other industries are exploring the space.”

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has complex and long standing humanitarian crises with about 13 million people in dire need of assistance. With less than one physician for every 10,000 people in DRC, and even fewer in conflict areas, rural health facilities are left without skilled staff and lack access to essential quality healthcare. This results in high morbidities, such as women and newborns dying during childbirth, and the rapid spread of disease epidemics due to inaccurate field diagnoses.

Iristick smart glasses take the portability of optical wear and the e-health solution of telemedicine, to connect remote medical staff with global medical expertise. The smart glasses make the eyes and ears of healthcare workers in remote areas and conflict zones available in real time to medical experts who can help diagnose, lend practical experience, or guide with their knowledge. Iristick has the potential to connect isolated medical staff with a global network of peer support and medical expertise.

Related articles:

Iristick selected as finalist for remote ehealth smartglasses (September 2018)

Iritistick AREA member profile

This report also displays the 2013-2025 production, Consumption, revenue, Gross margin, Cost, Gross, market share, CAGR, and Market influencing factors of the Augmented Reality (AR) industry in USA, EU, China, India, Japan and other regions.

Key players mentioned in the report include Google, Microsoft, Vuzix, Samsung Electronics, Oculus Vr, Eon Reality, Infinity Augmented Reality, Magic Leap, Blippar, Daqri, Htc, Playstation and Avegant.

Augmented Reality (AR) Market Analysis by Regions: Each geographical region is analyzed as Sales, Market Share (%) by Types & Applications, Production, Consumption, Imports & Exports Analysis, and Consumption Forecast.

Augmented Reality (AR) Market Analysis by Types: Each Type is studied as Sales and Market Share (%), Revenue (Million USD), Price, Gross Margin and more similar information.

Augmented Reality Glasses, Augmented Reality Display and Other.

Links:

Original source article.

Sample copy of the report.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) does a vital job in helping the air travel and air cargo industries meet the challenges of growing passenger and cargo demand, climate change and an evolving global economy that increasingly relies on goods being shipped quickly around the world by air.

IATA represents some 290 airlines in 120 countries and its member airlines carry 82% of the world’s air traffic. It is working aggressively to find and offer solutions that help its members meet a myriad of challenges.

At the World Cargo Symposium in Singapore last month, IATA Director General and CEO Alexandre de Juniac outlined some of the work his organization is doing to help spur and enable innovation in cargo handling – particularly as it relates to cargo handling warehouses, where goods shipped as part of e-commerce transactions are handled and dispatched to their ultimate destinations.

In talking about the need for change in warehouse facilities, he underscored the need to move more quickly in modernizing warehouse cargo operations and processes.

“Another example where urgent innovation is needed is the facilities we use. The e-commerce world is looking for fully automated high-rack warehouses, with autonomous green vehicles navigating through the facility, and employees equipped with artificial intelligence and augmented reality tools,” he said. “The average cargo warehouse today is an impressive sight. But there is a huge gap to fill.”

Brendan Sullivan, head of e-commerce and cargo operations for IATA, is charged with helping IATA members to speed up the modernization of warehouse facilities. And he’s become a big believer in using augmented reality to do it.

Last year, Sullivan and his team engaged with Atheer to help pilot new augmented reality options for IATA members – and were surprised and delighted by the results. He highlighted those results in a recent presentation at the World Cargo Symposium.

Sullivan said that IATA’s key findings were that it was able to achieve increased performance – and notably achieve a 30 percent improvement in the speed of cargo handling and a staggering 90 percent reduction in errors.

All of that means that air cargo carriers will be able to move more cargo through their warehouses, faster and with much greater accuracy. IATA’s implementation of Atheer makes effective use of the digital work instruction design and delivery capabilities of the Atheer AR Management Platform. It allows air cargo operators to have instant access to clear, consistent and unambiguous work instructions for key tasks (such as accepting cargo as ready for air carriage).

Those work instructions can be delivered directly into the field of view of warehouse cargo handlers (though the use of smart glasses, tablets or smartphones) and updated quickly and accurately via wireless connections from the mobile devices used by the warehouse.

IATA’s Brendan Sullivan reports that air cargo operators are excited by the prospect of implementing AR in their facilities. “People were really excited – because this solution is not dependent on hardware, is easy to trial and easy to implement,” he said. “That is one of the hooks for people when they hear about it.”

IATA is now working to test and on-board Atheer’s AR-based cargo handling work instructions at additional facilities.

Read the Atheer original blog post.

The lion’s share of media attention sometimes appears to focus solely on the slowly-improving hardware capabilities of virtual reality and augmented reality headsets. Of course, getting the hardware engineering right is crucial for enthusiasts in this niche industry.

Like any new computer electronics hardware device, the potential capabilities are encapsulated and presented to the public in the form of enhanced or additional features, like a wider Field-of-View (FoV), or foveated rendering. But the lack of software applications for any emerging technology, including augmented reality and virtual reality headsets, is a hapless bottleneck to a wider scale adoption by enterprise, let alone consumer markets. And software is much more difficult to create for virtual reality and augmented reality. But bottlenecks are unavoidable in product development, especially of high technology.

for virtual reality and augmented reality companies this year, winning enterprise accounts is the main goal. But software applications for virtual reality and augmented reality are far and few between. And though this is natural for an emerging hardware technology, the scarcity also doubles as a bottleneck for wide-scale adoption.

The article looks through what is Open XR and what does OpenXR 0.90 do?  The article concludes with the following summary statements:

Emerging technologies like AR and VR need time for development, and open standard organizations like OpenXR are trying to make it easier for developers to close the gap between touted potential and actualized potential.

Creating standards like Open XR 0.90 is an ongoing process, and universalizing development comes with it’s own costs. Certain data attributes will be lost in the attempt to standardize, so we’ll just have to wait and see how things develop.

From RealWear’s Press Release:

“A new era of computing has arrived. Just as laptops and mobile phones are standard for desk workers, voice command and augmented reality for wearable computers will become commonplace for field staff in our industry, driving safety and productivity.”

Michael Kaldenbach, Digital Realities Lead, Shell

The RealWear HMT-1Z1 is an intrinsically safe voice-controlled device with a micro-display that shows an image to a user as if they were viewing a seven-inch screen. The head-mounted computer is the world’s first commercially available device that permits field workers in highly restricted ATEX Zone 1 C1/D1 zones to use a wearable device where potentially explosive gases are present, helping to reduce health and safety work hazards.

Shell is currently using the HMT-1Z1 for remote assistance. For instance, if equipment needs maintenance, a worker can get real-time assistance via a video call, allowing an expert to essentially see through the eyes of the onsite worker and offer over-the-shoulder assistance. In one example, an expert uses Augmented Reality to remotely “draw” on the worker’s screen which is visualized on the head mounted screen.

Shell has already field tested and deployed 40 RealWear HMT-1Z1s in multiple countries and under different conditions and is now looking to roll out the devices further.

“In close collaboration with Shell and together with RealWear’s technology, Honeywell helps to change the way field workers operate, enabling higher levels of competency, productivity and safety assurance. By addressing key customer needs, Honeywell supports industrial companies like Shell in their digital transformation journey.”

John Rudolph, President, Honeywell Process Solutions

Honeywell is the global supplier of the HMT-1Z1 and provides additional software applications, services and hands-on field knowledge.

“We are thrilled to be working with Shell and Honeywell on this historic connected field worker program. It is the people in the field who are at the heart of every company. This vote of confidence by Shell marks a turning point for the 2.7 billion deskless workers globally who increasingly require the same connectivity as those who sit behind a desk.”

Andy Lowery, Cofounder and CEO, RealWear

Shell is an early adopter of augmented and virtual reality solutions for plants and workers. The move to wearables and mixed reality is part of Shell’s broader digital transformation.