This year’s Liveworx 2016 Internet of Things conference in Boston saw 5,000 visitors attend, making it the biggest event of its kind so far. The high levels of attendance are indicative of the exponential growth of the internet of things (IoT) industry and just how much value engineers and manufacturers are placing on understanding more and investing in smart, connected technology.
Dubbed the next industrial revolution, everyone by now has heard about the potential of connecting physical products and systems to the digital world in order to increase productivity and improve maintenance.
However, Jim Heppelmann, chief executive of software company PTC, organisers of the Liveworx conference, believes there is an extra dimension to add to the IoT mix that will increase its potential and value for business and customers alike: virtual reality and augmented reality.
Heppelmann says: “The way we think about IoT and connected smart products will change rapidly. Most people think of IoT simply as way to connect, monitor, optimise and automate but we at PTC think it must expand beyond the physical and digital to the way humans experience products. To do so we have spent time developing augmented and virtual reality software to combine with IoT in the past year.”
Democratising augmented reality
PTC announced its Vuforia Studio Enterprise at the Liveworx conference, a new tool for authoring and publishing augmented reality (AR) experiences for business. The software can be integrated with PTC’s Creo 3D CAD visualisation and illustration software – as well as other similar 3D CAD software - and ThingWorx, the companies IoT app builder and analytics software that provides predictive analysis for Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and IoT applications that can monitor, manage, control and automate operations.
The aim for Vuforia studio is to allow users to quickly and easily add an augmented reality component to connected ‘things’ – from manufacturing and factory equipment to solar panels and medical devices. This means that you can make information, such as real-time battery or fuel levels taken from sensors, appear on your iPhone or iPad as digital gauges, laid over the image of the physical machine in front of you.
The idea of using virtual reality (VR) to get an insight into how your 3D CAD designs will appear in real life in an immersive experience using headsets, and AR, where through devices such as headsets, smart glasses, tablets or an IPhone, users can mix digital information, animations and text over a real-world view of a device, is not necessarily new. Big names including Bombardier or JLR have been vocal about their explorations of these avenues to optimise their manufacturing and maintenance processes.
However, Jay Wright, general manager of Vuforia, says that PTC’s mission is to democratise AR and make it usable for everybody.
“AR and VR can be used together to create a mixed reality, which you can even do with affordable devices such as smart phones and Google cardboard,” explained Wright.
Ensuring augmented accuracy
One challenge for AR is to ensure that the information presented in reality is aligned correctly and accurately to the digital data. PTC’s solution is VuMark™, a kind of QR code that you can hover over with your iPhone or iPad, using an app called Vuforia View Enterprise.
Michael M Campbell, executive vice-president for Vuforia Studio, explains that this generates a ‘physical experience’. For example, live sensor data can be accessed, such as fuel level or battery life, and presented via the Vuforia View app with virtual gauges, laid over the physical machine.
Animations can also be displayed. “Creo illustrate shows you how to perform a task in a 3D model on a computer screen. We can do the same to author a sequence to fix a problem but present the information on the physical product with augmented reality, using Creo illustrate to drop in to Vuforia studio,” explains Campbell.
Animations displayed over the product can then be used by a worker to understand how to carry out a maintenance task, step-by-step.
AR also comes in handy for marketing and sales - Rolls-Royce is now using Vuforia and its AR capabilities to market its Trent 1000 to customers.
Wright says: “Engineers can create really compelling augmented reality displays in a matter of minutes. It’s a collaborative experience. You can see massive amounts of detail and another person can use another iPad and look at the design from different angles, remove and adding housing to an engine, for example, to show the full product.”
PTC has ensured that the vast majority of its Vuforia pro software can not only work on iPads but on Windows 10, Surface Pro 4, Surface Book and in April partnered with Microsoft for Microsoft HoloLens.
Practical applications
Heppelmann says: “Vuforia Studio Enterprise changes the way we experience things in the IoT. It makes it simple and scalable and democratises AR, making its use mainstream for customers like Caterpillar.”
Terri Lewis, director of solutions & technology at industrial manufacturing company Caterpillar, has applied AR using Vuforia software for the company’s XQ35 generator, which is typically rented out and used on job sites to power pumps, compressors and lighting units.
Lewis says: “When a set gets delivered people might not be familiar with the product and have to go through the manual. This is where iPad and AR changes that by simplifying start up procedure. Hold the iPad over the machine and a service technician can go through diagnostics to utilise the asset. You can see if you have enough fuel, battery information, change oil data, when it is scheduled for service and if things need fixing.”
The technology allows for the smart connected product to provide feedback along the whole life of the product and gives Caterpillar a greater understanding of product lifecycle and fleet management, Lewis added.
Heppellmann is currently working with esteemed Harvard Business School professor, Michael E Porter, to look into the business benefits of AR and VR in business enterprise and will publish the research this autumn.
PTC is also launching a pilot programme of Vuforia, getting companies to sign up and use the pre-production version of Vuforia Studio Enterprise. Find out more at vuforia.com