Alignment and large-area tracking for Augmented Reality content with minimal markers

Deadline

Alignment and large-area tracking for Augmented Reality content with minimal markers

Challenge

For many industrial tasks, the operator can be supported by Augmented Reality (AR) technology in which digital annotations are precisely aligned atop the physical workspace. Examples of such industrial tasks include:

  • Assembly operations
  • Fixing errors that cause production machine stops
  • Safety inspection and shopfloor maintenance
  • Warehouse management and intra-factory logistics

State-of-Practice AR solutions for these types of tasks exist mostly for confined spatial areas only (e.g., at the level of individual workstations). When scaling up to larger areas (e.g., factory-wide), existing solutions often rely heavily on physical markers for spatial alignment and tracking. However, the use of markers in large-scale workspaces is inflexible and can be prohibitively expensive.

Project goal

In this project we aim to improve the calibration and alignment of cameras in large-scale augmented reality settings. Hereby relying as little as possible on physical markers.

Current state-of-the-art tracking solutions easily degrade to more than 10cm mismatch in large production areas. Our goal is to achieve AR visualizations that are that can be used factory-wide with at a precision tolerance of <1 cm.

Depending on the companies involved in this project, we can integrate the resulting 6DoF tracking software in various types of AR setups like Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs), mobile and portable projectors, and 2D displays (e.g., tablets) that support AR passthrough.

 

Are you interested to join this project?

ALARMM_SBO is a Strategic Basic Research (SBO) project. We are looking for companies to join the User Group and work with us on the valorisation of the project.

Interested? Complete the form below and we will contact you as soon as possible.