Digital Assembly Assistance System in Industry 4.0 Era: A Case Study with Projected Augmented Reality

Abstract

Automation has increased more and more in manufacturing companies over the last decades. However, manual labor is still used in a variety of complex tasks and is currently irreplaceable, especially in assembly operations. Assisting and supporting the human worker during potentially complex assembly tasks is very relevant. Clear and easy-to-read assembly instructions, error-proofing methods, and an intuitive user interface for the worker have the potential to not only reduce the cognitive workload of the operator but also increase the productivity, improve the quality, reduce defects, and consequently reduce costs. Industry 4.0 technologies, in particular Augmented Reality and motion recognition sensors, can help companies in reaching these goals. However, there are currently only a few works that show how to implement these technologies with real case studies, especially with the Projected Augmented Reality (PAR). This is the reason why, in this paper an example of prototype of a smart workstation equipped with a Kinect-projector assistance system for manual assembly is presented.