Implementing Augmented Reality to aircraft maintenance: a daily inspection case study

AR (Augmented Reality) has been investigated in the last decade as a promising candidate technology to build up advanced interfaces for maintenance operators. Nevertheless, many factors, such as the scarce usability of cumbersome hardware, the need to use markers and the complexity in creating digital contents for single applications seem to affect its effective implementation in industry. In this paper we describe an AR interface designed to support bringing this technology to the industrial context. A Testing prototype taking into account usability requirements has been provides. The display is composed of the main window where the video stream and the virtual layer are overlaid. The 3D animation in the virtual layer depends on the specific status of the maintenance intervention. Different contents have been derived through the task analysis of the aircraft daily inspection. Finally, the evaluation of the system performed by operators is presented.