Augmented Reality Based Maintenance Operations and Training

Augmented Reality (AR) is the process of superimposing virtual information on top of objects or other structures in the real-world environment. It is considered one of many paradigms included in the idea of smart manufacturing and can enable a mixture of the other technologies involved. A large increase in research on AR has been seen in the past decade as technologies have begun to evolve to become more robust and reliable. It has been implemented into several key areas of manufacturing such as maintenance, assembly, training, and quality control. The rise of industry 4.0 is changing how data is used in the current manufacturing industry through use of cyber physical systems. During the day-to-day life of maintenance technicians, many tasks must be conducted to keep production running. This can be an overwhelming role as production lines become more and more automated. This thesis aims to develop an AR application capable of taking in information from the key assets on the production floor and displaying useful data for the technician. Moreover, this involves creating a framework for reactive and preventive maintenance scenarios to display vital tasks for technicians to carry out. By leveraging edge computing at the University of South Carolina’s McNair Aerospace Research Center, data extraction and networking techniques will be used for determining which tasks are to be dealt with. The Microsoft Hololens 2 will be the main display device to be used for visualization and input, as it is largely used across industry. This thesis will also cover an extensive literature review of AR and VR technologies, as well as the development and deployment strategies used for the AR maintenance application.