Augmented Reality To Help Mechanics Fix Vehicles 81
kkleiner writes "ARMAR, or Augmented Reality for Maintenance and Repair, is a head mounted display unit that provides graphic overlays to assist you in making repairs. An Android phone provides an interface to control the graphics you view during the process. Published in IEEE, and recently tested with the United States Marine Corps on an armored turret, ARMAR can cut maintenance times in half by guiding users to the damaged area and displaying 3D animations to demonstrate the appropriate tools and techniques."
On the down side (Score:5, Insightful)
We are very likely to see people like the major auto manufacturers providing this sort of
thing ONLY to their authorized dealers, and possibly trying to claim that any repair information
of any kind is copyrighted, just like they've done with the diagnostic codes on the black boxes.
Another dealer profit center. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wait a minute! (Score:3, Insightful)
The factory of the future will have two employees: a man and a dog. The man's job will be to feed the dog. The dog's job will be to prevent the man from touching any of the automated equipment.
-Warren G. Bennis
Re:Looks Neat (Score:3, Insightful)
"disclaimer: I'm a former military backshop avionics technician"
Represent!
Erm...
As a former flightline avionics weenie, engine troop, and later crew chief I concur with your assessment, and I wouldn't want that shit on ground vehicles either. A rugged notebook with a combination of .pdf manuals, photos, and videos would be much better because it need not be worn on the head and can be easily shared.
What it COULD be useful for is training. Once trained and with some experience, people know their systems and can rapidly troubleshoot them. Key to that is a combination of BIT (Built In Test) and electronic system diagnosis.
Re:Looks Neat (Score:4, Insightful)
"Now you just plug in to the on-board diagnostic system, and 9 times out of 10 it'll tell you exactly what the problem is."
That sounds like the same thing I hear people say about automotive scanners. "Just plug it in and it tells you exactly what is wrong!" That is a bunch of hogwwash. Scanners simply give the tech diagnostic codes, and in some cases allow for viewing certain circuits and their current (or stored) values. It simply gives you a direction to look.
For example, a scanner might have found a stored code for an oxygen sensor fault that indicates the engine is running full rich at all times (and even show voltage values that reflect this) when the real problem is a fuel injector with it's pintle jammed open by a sliver of metal left in the fuel rail during manufacturing. There is NO way in hell that the scanner will know anything about that sliver of metal. BUT, a good mechanic will know what types of failures can cause a full rich condition and start ruling them out one at a time. The code is merely a starting point.
This device will not give a mechanic the sudden ability to know all the possible causes, nor will it always tell them the truth. False codes are a real problem that are usually ruled out BEFORE any further diagnosis occurs (usually by pulling codes followed by clearing them and seeing which ones come back).
There is not a device on this planet that can replace a good diagnostician simply because every possible failure is impossible to foresee.