History in the Making for Augmented Reality !! A key challenge in the adoption of Augmented Reality is the use of 3D Object Tracking, as opposed to the use of markers. In the military, the use of placing “markers” on objects such as vehicles or aircraft, is not viable. The challenge increases with the issue of object size. AVATAR has developed a successful use case, ARMA (Augmented Reality Maintenance Aid), that uses 3D Object Tracking to perform maintenance functions on the F/A-18 (Super Hornet) Aircraft. Here, we take a common maintenance task (Code 901 – Left Main Landing Gear Planing Link Proximity Switch Fail) and demonstrate the maintenance procedure through Augmented Reality.
Congratulations to the AVATAR – Vuforia (Unity) team for all your hard work overcoming this obstacle, and enabling Augmented Reality for real-world aircraft maintenance TODAY! (From AVATAR: Michael Davis, Joshua Zavaleta, Dan Kelton, James Williams, Scott “Skweez” Toppel); from PTC/Vuforia: Christina Dobrin, John Iaia). Below is a scaled down model of the aircraft and other objects that have been captured through 3D object tracking (including a heart and a motorcycle).