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Hardware Technology

"Augmented Reality" For the Assembly Line 183

Posted by CowboyNeal from the cyborg-workers dept.
silkySlim writes "EETimes has a short article about a combination data goggles and earpiece device to replace big manuals and reduce training time for assembly line workers. 'In one possible scenario, a technician with data goggles bends over the engine block of a luxury car and removes the covering. He is receiving instructions through an ear piece telling him what to do next while his data goggles mark the screws and bolts on which he must next place his tool.' Apparently, it's already in use by several automotive companies. There's some additional papers also available."
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"Augmented Reality" For the Assembly Line More

"Augmented Reality" For the Assembly Line

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  • Remindes me of the Matrix (Score:5, Funny)

    by spuke4000 ( 587845 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @01:04PM (#6424358)
    Tank, I need to know how to fix a Lexus IS300, now!!!

  • When things go wrong.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Wuffle ( 651894 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @01:05PM (#6424361) Homepage
    THE GOGGLES! THEY DO NOTHING!

  • Typical /. reader thought. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 12, 2003 @01:05PM (#6424363)
    Now if only these came with a bedroom module then maybe I'd know what to do when I found a girl in my bed.

  • Technical writing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BWJones ( 18351 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @01:05PM (#6424364) Homepage Journal

    I would be interested to see what in the way of technical writing and documentation goes into this sort of thing. It would force many technical writers to also focus on interface much more than they do now with standard Robohelp systems or other standard documentation.

    • Talking of technical writing - what about grammar? "There's some additional papers also available." should be "There are some additional papers also available."

  • augmenting reality (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm about to augment my reality with 1.5L of really cheap vodka.

    Cheers

  • How long (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 12, 2003 @01:07PM (#6424373)
    Until they start implanting happy thoughts and images into the system to keep the workers productive. "You love your job."

  • Excellent (Score:3, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @01:07PM (#6424376)
    I cant what to see what happens when someone hacks into this system. I expect to see some cars reminiscent of my early childhood efforts with mecanno.

  • Audio more efficient than text. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This day has been a long time in coming. In addition to reading books, I now spend much of my time listening to books, websites, etc., and I am not hearing impaired.

    ATT's "NaturalVoices" technology (utilized by TextAloudMP3) is just exponentially better than the old Stephen Hawking voice, adds tone, inflection, etc., using grammatical clues, and makes even listening to Project Gutenberg's E-Texts of Charles Dickens Novels enjoyable.

    The big productivity boost in this technology is that after a little bit

    • Re:Audio more efficient than text. (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Why are you modded as troll? Here is the explanation:

      1. You are trying to sound Insightful but have deliberately made meaningless statements. Such as saying that you now listen to many websites and books, and you are not hearing impaired. That makes no sense, only a visually-impaired person would be the typical user of speech accessibility functions.

      2. Voice is absolutely in no possible way 20 times faster than reading. Unless you have to sound out each word in your mind as you read, many people can read

  • Finally... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ksheka ( 189669 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @01:08PM (#6424382)
    ...When I was an undergraduate in CS at Columbia University (graduated in '93), the graphics guys were working on this.

    It's nice that it's finally coming down the pipeline 10 years later. Makes me wish I was still on the inside instead of looking at all this stuff as an outsider. :-(

  • Still Use people! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In this day and age Automotive companies are still using people to do manufacturing?

    How barbaric.

  • Psychological long-term ramifications (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LordOfYourPants ( 145342 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @01:11PM (#6424394)
    Talk to most anyone who works on an assembly line and they will tell you that their job is as boring as hell. Some might say that they almost feel like a machine themselves.

    Contrast this with a labourer who builds furniture from scratch or a shoemaker and you find yourself in a different situation. While their actions are the same, their efforts have tangible results. If they have their own business selling what they've created the satisfaction runs deeper.

    How are goggles shining lights in your face saying "Unscrew this next" going to make you feel any closer to the work that you're doing? It just seems like another level of detachment to me.

    Why did the article discuss hardware problems but not social problems regarding the goggles?

    Mind you, from a Slashdot geek perspective, the goggles are a cool idea, but I don't feel envious of the people who are going to have to use these things on an assembly line.

    • Re:Psychological long-term ramifications (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dollar70 ( 598384 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @01:20PM (#6424433) Homepage Journal
      Being a factory slave myself, I must concur. If you are left in the uneviable position of having to be the end user of such a device, it will have a particularly demoralizing effect on you. It's relentless micromanaging with no conscience what-so-ever. Don't like it? Fine. There's plenty of other people out there who are desperate enough to have a job so they can afford housing and soylent green rations. To them you're just an endless supply of renewable resources.

      • Re:Psychological long-term ramifications (Score:4, Funny)

        by Cruel Angel ( 676514 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @04:28PM (#6425111)
        To them you're just an endless supply of renewable resources.

        Peharps you've never noticed the term Human Resources?
        dollar70 does have a point though. somthing like this means that you can gather an even lower level of unskilled labor, expanding the resource pool.

        and on a creepier (funnier?) thought, suppose you could recieve updated instructions from your manager/ supervisor on the fly. Does anyone else have an image of somone sitting at their computer, clicking on a real-time layout of their production floor, selection someone wearing this gear, and moving them to another project? If that happens, would we have to say funny things if the click on us repeatedly?

      • Well, maybe your situation as a "factory slave" (as you put it) will cause you to maybe want to move up to a more enjoyable (and maybe profitable) job.

        Come back to me with some tripe about how your stuck where you are, and I'll give you a couple stories from my immigrant friends.
        • Come back to me with some tripe about how your stuck where you are, and I'll give you a couple stories from my immigrant friends.

          Fine, I won't bore you with "some tripe" as you so eloquently trolled, but I didn't originally intend on growing up to work in a factory. Truth is, I took the job because it was what was available five years ago when I desperately needed to pay the bills. Since then I worked my way up high enough within the company to make more money than I could currently earn as an entry level

          • Fine, I won't bore you with "some tripe" as you so eloquently trolled

            Not an intentional troll, I'm just sick and tired of the "I can't do it" attitude that's been forming. So many people sit on their butts and complain about how they're stuck where they are, and then there's the people who work incredibly hard and take night classes to get the right knowledge(sp?).

            And one day you'll appreciate me just as much when you come looking for a place on my goggle-run assembly line because your immigrant frien
        • Twit.

          You can quote rags-to-riches stories all you like. It won't change that only so many will succeed and the rest fail. This is not simply due to the skills or efforts of those that don't succeed but circumstance and environment.

          The fact remains that if we want mass-produced devices (cars, etc.) someone will have to work those jobs (until complete automation). And if we want those toys what's wrong with making the jobs that make them livable?

          And if you haven't noticed, there are attempts at de-skill
      • Sounds like Rivethead [amazon.com] - he's an autoworker who basically cracks after years on the line. He also describes the various means of getting the job done while getting drunk/stoned/laid and trying to keep things interesting...
    • I couldn't stand working with a system like this constantly. But for training? It sounds pretty schweet.
    • I don't think it's going to be all that bad. These systems won't be used that extensively, simply because they will slow down skilled workers who already know what they're doing. If I've been working a station for two years, I already know which screws need to be tightened down, and which order, and how tight. Wearing goggles and having a voice in my ear and everything superimposed and highlighted is just going to slow me down. Probably slow me down dramatically.

      Taken strictly as a training tool, I lik
      • doing. If I've been working a station for two years, I already know which screws need to be tightened down, and which order, and how tight.

        Not necessarily. The article mentioned wiring harnesses with thousands of cables that need to be routed. I don't care how long you've been doing it, you probably aren't going to learn how to do it, there's just too many things to remember. There are so many wires that even with color-coding you can't tell them all apart, much less where they all go.

  • data goggles mark the screws and bolts on which he must next place his tool. Hehe
  • I know I've heard about these augmented reality goggle thingamazoos before. [slashdot.org]

  • no thanks. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by August_zero ( 654282 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @01:14PM (#6424410)
    Sure its definately cool, but its scary too. Imagine directions being constantly spoken into your ear as you perform your job.

    Human beings are not efficent organisms, neither in chemistry or psychology. You can't expect a human to act like a machine, something has got to give.

  • Not suitable for prolonged use (Score:5, Informative)

    by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @01:18PM (#6424424) Homepage Journal
    Solutions are still far from perfect. The quality of data goggles and displays drew general criticism. "The data goggles aren't suitable for using for a whole day," said Lukasser of EADS. Bernd Lühr of Airbus Germany agreed. "The hardware problems in the goggles and trackers still need to be solved".

    I tried one of the AR displays a few months back. The main reason why I thought that particular model was unsuitable for prolonged use, was that the text and other information appeared at a different depth from the object I was observing. The AR information was displayed at a fixed "infinite" depth.This made it impossible to focus on both the text and object at the same time, requiring me to adjust my eye focus everytime I wanted to read something. This constant refocussing caused a good amount of discomfort.

    Adjusting the depth of the text to make sure it is exactly superimposed on the object that is being viewed is quite challenging, especially when the viewer moves his line of sight frequently.

    An alternate design that some people find easier to adjust to uses a display mounted on a single eye (with the RW showing up in a dimmed background). I haven't tried these, but supposedly they are easier to get used to.

    • take a queue from cameras... (Score:5, Informative)

      by rebelcool ( 247749 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @05:56PM (#6425345)
      an autofocus system would deal with that problem quite nicely. There are a couple of ways AF works on cameras, one is to evaluate the image itself looking for constrasting lines and measuring the gradient. Too much gradient means a blur, so it adjusts until sharpened.

      The other method is active focus which bounces an infrared beam off the object and measures the distance.

      Neither is perfect, but in a controlled manufacturing setting it would be easy to create 'focus points' on objects which would allow the system to focus the right distance. Heck, with that you could probably build the system to focus specifically on the correct part, further eliminating confusion.

      • I think the difficulty the parent mentioned was due to the fact that people look all over the place. I have a monitor 2 feet or so in front of me, but if I shift my eyes some, I can see the horizon which is real far away. To properly focus a display to line up with that would require a computer to track the eye, triangulate what it's looking at, then adjust the focus accordingly, which I assume is no small feat.
        • The real difficulty I see is that we'd prefer that text/pic for each different object should be at the same focal distance as the object it's linked to.

          However for technical reasons it's much easier to put the text all at one focal distance.

          To solve this could involve increasing complexity and cost of the devices in order to simultaneously display graphics/text at different focal distances, or to only show text/graphics for objects at the focal distance you are looking at (phase in/out effect), plus some

    • The AR information was displayed at a fixed "infinite" depth.This made it impossible to focus on both the text and object at the same time, requiring me to adjust my eye focus everytime I wanted to read something.

      Couldn't they just overlay the text on a video feed from two small cameras mounted directly in front of the eyes and display the video mix to the user? Then depth becomes no problem because you're always focused on the screen, text and image will match.

      Of course, then system bulk, focus, resolu

  • I need one for women. (Score:3, Funny)

    by GoofyBoy ( 44399 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @01:20PM (#6424435) Journal

    I look at a crowd of women and it gives me stats and percentage success rate with different "targets".

    I then talk to her and up pops up witty and appropate comments.

    I then start making out with her and then I get a Blue Screen of Death/Seg Fault.

    "Excuse babe, I need to Google something."
  • Your working habbits will adapt to service us.
    Resistance is feutile.

    Have a nice day.
  • The four biggest problems with extensive adoption of this idea are:

    1. Safety and Liability. I can just imagine a bug telling the new assembly line "cyber drone" to drill a hole 1 foot to the left when it meant one inch (shades of Nigel Tuefnel!), and the resulting explosion when he drills into the fuel tank. That, and the possibility of anyone who screws up telling his supervisor "Hey, that's what the Magic Smart Goggles told me to do!"

    2. Cost. Technical writers are comparatively cheap [and easy to lay off, he noted bitterly]. Programmers are expensive. If the new Mark 2 Framistan has holes in a different places, that's five minutes of work tops to put the new information in existing manuals, but a day to write the code, debug it, and test the magic googles to make sure they're acurately pointing out the new framistan holes rather than the old ones.

    3. Limited Applicability to Modern Manufacturing. A good portion of the most repetative assembly line jobs have already moved overseas. Many of the mechanical assembly jobs left don't require one worker doing the same thing 100 times, but doing 100 different things on a far more complex tool (i.e., the difference between assembling a toaster and assembling, say, an Ion Implanter). Optimizing "Enhanced Reality" for one task performed 100 times a day may be cost effective, but not for programming and training the system for hundreds of tasks.

    4. The Awesome Power of Human Stupidity. Everytime they make something idiot proof, nature has shown the amzing ability to come up with a better idiot.

    • Some nitpicking:

      and the resulting explosion when he drills into the fuel tank

      As far as I know, cars aren't usually assembled with fuel in the gas tank. Even if they were, gasoline does not explode in liquid form, it merely burns--you would have to aerosolize it first in order to get an explosion.

      A good portion of the most repetative assembly line jobs have already moved overseas.

      So what? Can't the overseas people doing those repetetive tasks still use this technology?

      Everytime they make som

  • People as peripherals (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @01:23PM (#6424445) Homepage
    I hope those guys have a strong union.

    Years ago, before multi-layer PC boards worked well, there was something called "semi-automated wire wrap". Production wire wrap involves wiring up big circuit boards with thousands of wires. Fully automated wire wrap machines were huge and expensive, and manual wire wrap tended to have too many errors. So "semi-automated wire wrap" was developed. Lights indicated the row and column where the wire was to be attached. The position of the hand-held wire wrap gun was monitored through a mechanical linkage, and if it was in the wrong place, pulling the trigger did nothing. Thus, when a wire was attached, it had to be in the right place.

    The equipment for this was far simpler than the fully automated machine, so, using low-wage workers, it became a common way of building boards. It totally de-skills the job. In an hour, anyone can learn it.

  • Dr.?? did your computer crash? (Score:5, Funny)

    by malia8888 ( 646496 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @01:26PM (#6424460)
    From the piece: In one possible scenario, a technician with data goggles bends over the engine block of a luxury car and removes the covering. He is receiving instructions through an ear piece telling him what to do next while his data goggles mark the screws and bolts on which he must next place his tool.'.

    It makes me wonder, when this technology is going to enter the field of medicine? I don't think I am ready for a physician with a Dell box strapped to his head..

    • It makes me wonder, when this technology is going to enter the field of medicine? I don't think I am ready for a physician with a Dell box strapped to his head..

      Personally, as long as the doctor doesn't use it as a crutch or replacement for knowledge, I would be fine with it. I can imagine having a readout of your blood pressure, heart rate, and other monitored bodily functions all right there, without needing to look away or call out for a reading.

      Working on a machine and working on a human body are

  • I can see a REALLY big problem with this approach, that will probably be difficult to properly instruct for, and that is inconsistencies, errors, and dangerous situations that could crop up, and the technician in question (though if they keep dumbing down the instruction, "technician" might no longer apply) might not be able to tell what is wrong or how severe it is.

    Remember, for problems, textbooks usually have fairly lengthy descriptions of types of failures and things to look for, with some representa
  • Anyone who's read the excellent "A Deepness In the Sky" will recognise these goggles as the "huds" in that book.

  • Am I nitpicking, or is the term "Augmented Reality" a bit of a misnomer. Reality is reality, what we augment is our perception of reality.

  • beyond factories (Score:2, Informative)

    by Ateryx ( 682778 )
    This article is rather bland and trite in comparison to Scientific American's [sciam.com] article that goes into a greater depth [sciam.com] about the value of AR in the future (April 2002).

    The comments so far have been asking whether or not assembly workers actually need the AR. I would say many don't, however, as manufacturing becomes more and more automated, the actual jobs of the workers/repairmen on the line will probably increase in complexity leading to an excellent use of AR.

    EETimes doesn't even mention the possiblity
  • Back when I thought Michael Chritchton (I think I probably spelled both of those wrong, I'm retarded) was the greatest, I read all of his books.

    In Disclosure, they were testing out these goggles that do the same thing, but on airplanes.

    I'm not sure when that book was published, but I would guess prior to or during '95 because I don't think I read his stuff while I was in college and was too busy. I certainly haven't read anything of his since college.

    I guess then it was vaporware, and now it is for real.
  • I don't know about you, but I always hate it when Windows (yes, I know) forces me to go through a fucking "wizard" in order to do things. I like to learn and do things at my own pace and in my own order, and I *definitely* would hate to be a skilled technician being told through an earpiece how to use a screwdriver.

    (OK, I'll go RTFA now.)
    • I hate witches even more. And a level 3 warlock that can block spells of enchantment due to some punk ass cloak that he got by caching in bags of coins just pisses me off.
      I don't have anything particularly against trolls, as long as my sword has the sheath of enlightenment maxed out after enough potions and one ups.

      I suppose I don't really know anything about that sort of thing, but I was trying to think of what the people that I saw in college sword fighting in the quad while wearing Elizabethan garb migh
  • quite some time, beeing virtual or not.

    There are real health problems acossiated with this technology : A CAVE (yeah, a room filled with VERY big screens, often used by oil and automobile companies to display 3D graphics) will disturb your visual balance/depth, enough to impair your driving. In Norway you have restrictions on your driving after too much time inside a CAVE.

    A day in front of a lousy monitor gives you less of a headache than a day of using even expensive, high-quality googles.

    Technology

  • then what chance does an independent auto mechanic have of keeping up? I think the manufacturers will use this technology to further control the service end of the business.
    • The days of independent mechanics are numbered. They have for quite some time now, since it has been apparently deemed acceptable for manufacturers to encode proprietary service codes in their systems, and persuade Congress that it is not an "antitrust" action for locking competitors out by doing so. Worse yet, this same Congress passed the DMCA which makes it actually illegal to try to figure out how they made it so it can be fixed.

      With a declining percentage of older open-architecture cars in the natio


  • This gives me the impression that prodution can actually slow down when workers use this. Think about it for a second. Workers on a production line become familiarized with undertaking tasks in a fashion that's helpful to themselves, they often get accustomed to doing things they way they want to which is sometimes faster than going through steps 1 - 5. By having to be told how to do things they have to stop and listen for one (which takes up time slows down production), and they have to deal with the imper
    • I only skimmed through the real article, but I had the impression that these things were only meant for training or for use in unfamiliar situation (that bit about the mechanic and the car). They're supposed to be a replacement for manuals, and you don't use a manual all the time, do you?
  • IIRC, Wired and/or /. had an article several years ago about Boeing using a simlilar system for jet liner assembly.

  • People Robots (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jonhuang ( 598538 )
    That's... horrible. Efficent, economical and innovative. But horrible--you remove every bit of skill, creativity, and inititive ( I know, I know, not much to begin with ) and make people into meat robots. The real problem is, people will start expecting workers to *be* like robots. No training, no intro, just stick a pair of glasses on them and tell them what bolts to turn. If they slack a little, well the glasses will probably beep at them and alert payroll. You're naive if you don't believe that isn't on

    • Faster, Better, Cheaper (Score:2, Insightful)

      by anubi ( 640541 )
      I see this system as a way of implementing "supervision" at the micro-micro-management level, keeping tabs of employee productivity down to the microsecond.

      I could see where statistics, maintained by the system, would organize down to the very last microcent which employee was more productive than another. Given training will be no longer required, the employee can be ranked as easily as a solenoid valve, and replaced just as easily.

      This is great news for the businessman, who will undoubtedly lobby ( and

    • Re:People Robots (Score:2, Insightful)

      by puckhead ( 241973 )
      "I can see a day when people will be fired for putting in four screws in counter-clockwise when the labled instructions told them to do it clockwise."

      I think you're being a bit optimistic.

      I've been around Union plants most of my life. From managements point of view, it's probably better to have the wheel fall of a car because it was screwed in wrong than put up with a strike for firing the guy who did it.
    • But horrible--you remove every bit of skill, creativity, and inititive

      Uhhh....you're not supposed to have any of those things if your assembling an engine. The skill creativitiy and inititive comes from the engineers and designers, not the factory worker. I'd really hate it if my car blew up because John C. Doe decided to be 'creative' with my timing belt (I'm not sure if that can blow a car up, but that's about the extent of my car lingo).

      I can see a day when people will be fired for putting in four
      • Considering screws have 'threads' on them, they don't fasten well if you rotate them the wrong direction(if you can get them in at all)

        Umm... They fasten fine if you 'rotate' them with a hammer.
  • The system described in 'Airframe' by Micheal Crighton (sp?) - which is well worth a read if you can find a copy.

  • Been there, done that... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by aelred ( 7268 )
    Back in '95, working for a DoD contractor, I saw a demo of some augmented reality gear being proposed for equipment troubleshooting and maintenance applications. The goggles were the same material used in head-up displays, coupled with an earpiece/microphone/camera in the headgear.

    The microphone provided input for possibly the best voice input setup I've ever seen to date, in that it actually recognized a user saying things like, "yeah, uh-huh" and similar grunt/groan acknowledgements. The goggles were l
  • ::Blatant Plug Alert:::

    Prepping our booth now for SIGGRAPH in San Diego later this month. We will be presenting a pair of two player mixed reality games on the show floor. We're using Canon video see through HMD's to put the player in a Sci-Fi Time Portal shoot 'em up game as well as a mixed reality aquarium game where you play ball with dolphins.

    The idea is to get away from the "text in space" phenomenon that is present with most augmented or mixed reality systems to try and blend the real and the vi

  • A clever hack (Score:3, Funny)

    by jonhuang ( 598538 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @02:40PM (#6424741) Homepage
    Note that you could implement a clever hack job that would make all the employees fabricate say.. a giant lexus-branded steel penis. Since they've been reduced to following step by step operating codes, this taking over of worker directives would probably not be noticed until the very end. Likewise, corporate espionage could in the future consist of stealing the proper meme-program (obligatory ref: snow crash) to whatever missle tech is currently trendy. This is a consequence of further removing the worker from the means of production.

  • The real application for these... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AgTiger ( 458268 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @02:44PM (#6424756) Homepage
    The real application for these is an on-demand assembly line to replace a multitude of expensive single product lines that probably don't need to run all the time.

    Picture an automotive assembly line that has 300 assembly stations, each one of which gets the "next part" supplied by a chain driven conveyer bringing it to the station on a hook.

    Jane, who takes care of placing and tightening down the intake manifold on the engine block in front of her, no longer has to either think about what torque to use, what bolt pattern, or really, anything. Follow the instructions, tighten the bolts per the visual overlay pattern at the designated torque, and on to the next block coming down the line and intake manifold coming off the parts conveyer belt.

    The ultimate end of this is much like the Microsoft commercial where the guy in the showroom is picking whether he wants a black car or a red car, and the manufacturing plant is responding almost instantly. Now extend this to not beginning the production on a car until an order is placed, and it'll be ready that day for delivery to the customer's city.

    And yes, this reduces Jane to a non-thinking bio-machine for the assembly line. That's the really awful part of this process.

    Cast in the Name of Efficiency, Ye Not Cognizant.
    Big Ugh.

    • If the computer is sophisticated enough too be able to visually recognise the bolts, determine their position to superimpose it on the display and knows how much torque to apply to it....why can't it do it itself?
  • with the big claw on it to position his head exactly where it needs to be to align the images on the goggles with the hands-on media.

  • Aircraft manufacturers have done this for years (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RhettLivingston ( 544140 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @03:17PM (#6424879) Journal

    Boeing in St. Louis (military fighter division) uses goggle technology for several manufacturing processes. One example is when making wiring harnesses for aircraft. The wiring harnesses are very complex and can span over 100 feet. They used to have specific pattern boards for every different harness with pegs to support the wires and drawings to follow right on the boards. Now, they use a generic board with a grid of supports and they put a pair of goggles on that superimposes the wiring diagram on the board so that they can manufacture the harness of the day.

    I believe they have also applied this technology to the maintenance task to the degree that someone at a remote site can put on a pair of the goggles and be guided by visual highlighting superimposed over the aircraft parts to a task. They may also access schematics that do not superimpose and listen to guidance through the same networked device as they perform their task.

  • The Goggles (Score:2, Informative)

    by anubi ( 640541 )
    If you wanna check out what the goggles actually are, here's a link of one I am investigating for using in a similar effort on one of my contracting jobs...

    Micro Optical Corporation [microopticalcorp.com]

    These use the heads-up overlay display technology.

  • Personal experience (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sitturat ( 550687 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @03:48PM (#6424965) Homepage
    In the car plant I work at (which will have to remain nameless) the workers learn how to build cars by trial and error.

    When a new model comes they start by producing only one a day. The cars that result from the first months of production are so bad that they have to be repaired by experts in a special hall, sometimes taking several days for each car.

    The first hundred or so cars are only used for presentations, road tests and crash tests anyway, so it's no big deal if they don't look perfect.

    Unfortunately, by the time the car goes into full production most of the workers still don't know what they are doing, and it takes a few hundred defect cars in a row before anyone decide to do anything about the problem.

    I guess a system like this would be ideal for the starting phase of production, to train up the workers. The only problem is that whoever sets up the system in the beginning would have to know how to build the car in the optimal way (including all variations). Usually nobody has this knowledge until after the fact.
  • I don't understand the point of this. If you are having to program a goggle interface complex enough to recognize the screws from any nearby position and have it mark every last step, why not just put a robot arm on it instead of putting a person there? If you are mechaniziing the decision making and visual recognition, the only thing left - arm movement, is cake.
    • Space considerations maybe? Or maybe it's too difficult to design a robot arm that can 1) lift things 2) drill things 3)screw things in or out and 4) recognize if there's a problem outside of the scope of the visual recognition system.

      The computer may be providing cues to the operator, but the operator would still need to be a competent mechanic. This just gives him the ability to be a subject matter expert in real time. Think of it as yourself learning a new piece of network hardware or software app wi
  • I'm sure there were already working prototypes, it's not a unique idea, etc etc, but something very similar to this was described in the novel Airframe, published a few years back - a VR headset used to access the manual. It sounds even cooler now with the ability to delve through "virtual parts," but I remember thinking that was a neat idea at the time.

    That said, I still prefer printed manuals to the PDF files that come with most software from a store, so who knows how usable a virtual manual would be.
  • The first thing that came to my mind when I read this was "System Shock".

    The second thing that came to my mind was "hey, that's pretty cool".

    The third thing that came to my mind was "how useful is that for assembly lines, though?".

    I guess if they can make them cheap enough it would be worth it, but I have to wonder if going full-robotics wouldn't make more sense in that case.

    What I would find this very useful, and very cool, for, is the kind of task that requires highly specialized expertise that is rel
  • when I started noticing how MANY times I saw the word "goggle" misspelled as "google"....

    Wake up people, there's more to life than the web...

    *grin*
  • Imagine how a device like this would improve the experience of loosing your virginity.

  • I'll bet you see a whole new version of the time and motion studies with these things. It'll cause worker unrest and eventually strikes until a more reasonable compromise is reached.
  • In fact, they were just starting to develop the specs before I was laid off this last January. Their ultimate goal was to develop a wearable computer, with goggles and earpiece just as described in the story, that could be used by any A&P mechanic, not just the assembly line folk.

    I think someone even had an idea that the system would be smart enough to where an inspector could look at, say, part of a turbofan engine and, if said engine was missing a fix mandated by a maintenance bulletin, would notice

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