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"Augmented Reality" For the Assembly Line
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."
Until they start implanting happy thoughts and images into the system to keep the workers productive. "You love your job."
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 of practice, you can listen to an unabridged text file probably 20 times faster than reading, especially as you do not have to stop while driving, jogging, etc...
I can't believe there hasn't been more industrial use of this technology.
I've tried to get the PG folks to promote this more as it would make the "market" for their E-Books much larger, but that is pretty much the opposite of their very basic approach to technology. (i.e. not wanting to release their texts in anything other than a plain old ASCII format because they want their texts as widely accessible as possible.)
...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.
alias uptime="echo '5:33pm up 22342352324 days, 6:28, 2124315623 users, load average: 2432.40, 12312.31, 123123.19'"
In this day and age Automotive companies are still using people to do manufacturing?
How barbaric.
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.
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 linked to a rather cool pattern recognition system. A small status bar in the side of the display provided a couple of icons to let the user know they were on the right track, a smiley/mr. yuck set of icons provided a status as to system "lock" status (or not).
The major downside to all this was the hardware in '95 to support all this was rather intensive. I recall 3-4 towers, plus a custom-built rather hefty cube-shaped box (no, not a next cube) that handled all the pattern-recognition processing and voice input. Oh, and the hefty wiring to the headgear.
Other than that, pretty darn cool back in '95...
With a declining percentage of older open-architecture cars in the nation's fleet, we will see a declining percentage of independent repair businesses.
I fix my own car.. which is the primary reason I have no interest in the new cars, which can't be fixed without infringing on the laws passed by those clowns under the styrofoam "vote hats" which parade around every few years, exhorting how it I elect them, they will "fight" for me.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
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 quite different, where a mistake just a bit off could kill someone on the operating table, where a mistake on an assembly line means the machine may not work right.
Granted, the malfunctioning machine may kill someone later when in use by the end user, but that's what QA is for.
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
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.
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.
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 applicant in the job of my dreams.
It's tough in every occupational field in case you haven't noticed, and for the moment my current overseers have recognized my particular abilities as being more useful to them than an "Engrish" challenged immigrant.
Being a factory worker is not a shameful occupation, but some of the smug PHB's out there delight in the concept of people toiling their lives away in miserable working conditions. "They get what they deserve, and they deserve whatever I say, because I'm the boss."
I work, pay taxes, have a mortgage, and consume like any good American should. I don't blame my employer for my position. Deep down I am appreciative for the priveledge of having a job. 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 friends have found a way to replace you.