This publication is part of an ongoing discussion on the wide-ranging applications ofVR/AR technologies in the broader Aerospace framework.
These case studies are intended to assist in understanding the challenges faced by these companies, the impact of adopting these technologies as solutions, and the recommended best practices for VR,AR applications in the aerospace industry.
We encourage continuous industry feedback to keep this a living document. As a committee, we intend to update this material as needed.
The Aerospace Committee of the VR/AR Association serves as a resource to promote the application of VR/AR technology as a solution to a number of traditional problems in aerospace. The committee enables the sharing of best practices and information on VR/AR related applications in the aerospace industry as well as curate industry relevant case studies. Furthermore, the committee shapes and recommends best practices for the scaling of VR/AR applications across aerospace.
Foreword
The bar for operational excellence has moved up. Virtual work-place training and augmented overlays serving as a medium to present teams and people with important information are commonplace. In aerospace, it’s a race among common players, new disruptors, and players in other verticals to lead the charge; who can use new tools to eliminate old problems. And how far can we, should we, go with this technology?
Analyze, develop, test, repeat. Get a developer with a vision, or a visionary with a developer, and the previous limit is 50,000feet below you. But you’re not alone at that altitude. We still have rules, and reliable processes, virtual and augmented reality support existing operations, not scrap them. What’s so special is the immediate and continuous impact these tools have to accelerate the learning/training process and lower fixed and variable costs. These tools empower employees to create content libraries of reusable training making visualizing data possible. Because of this, errors are caught earlier; defects are reduced.Tests are more thorough. Pilots and technicians are prepared for more extreme scenarios. Every aspect of developing and operating a manned or unmanned aircraft has some story of how they’ve improved using these tools.
Experience-based training. Soak on that. What is experienced-based training? It used to align with creating simulations that involved as real of a scenario as an under-funded training program could provide.Now, it’s using VR to practice starting an aircraft 50 times (in every temperature, night, day, backward, forward, at every airport) before you before you ever see a physical aircraft. It’s validating and practicing work instructions to connect a wing to an aircraft within the time manufacturing engineers estimated without needing hardware to train. It’s taking your client(who happens to be on the other side of the world) into a virtual world to visualize what your product fully integrated and operating well for them means. The contributors to this document speak this type of success based upon the tools they’re creating for us.People using their products, and products like theirs, know so much more, learn and innovate so much quicker, identify root causes earlier, increase product reliability, and position their organizations to support technological art that is Industry 4.0.
This isn’t a blip on the productivity radar that will level off as soon as the gimmick is over. This isn’t the 30-day app. This is some variant ofThe Matrix happening right before our eyes. Quite literally. Right now, experienced workers are adding augmented reality overlays to processes and procedures (visual cues to notes, cautions, and warnings, for example) and uploading these sessions to a learning management system ready to deploy the knowledge globally.TheIoT of manufacturing and production identifies when someone hasn’t performed a task recently offers proficiency training, publications, checklists, and SME support within their field of view the day before the task is likely to be completed. There is some information that we know, but still so much we don’t know. How far will this go?Where does the virtual line stop, and the physical line stay? What we do know is this technology is spreading quickly because it’s so effective. Teams are diving deep and using more tools to get to hyper performing organizations in every vertical. Thank you to the contributors within this document.They are a joy to watch, let alone work alongside.
