Supporting the assembly process by leveraging augmented reality, cloud computing, and mobile devices

The assembly process is often very complex and involved, collecting and managing a significant number of parts in an intricate manner. Because the quality of a product is in large part impacted by the assembly process, intuitive and carefully scaffolded guidelines can make a difference in how fast and how accurate an assembler can complete the assembly process. To this end, the authors propose an innovative system that leverages three current and emerging technologies; augmented reality (AR), cloud computing, and mobile devices, to create an Augmented Reality Product Assembly (ARPA) system. This paper describes the total framework for creating the ARPA system. They also discuss how the system leverages augmented reality visualizations for repurposing user-generated assembly guidelines by incorporating cloud-based computing. Although the authors situate ARPA's use in an industrial setting, it is domain-independent and able to support a wide range of practical and educational applications.