Augmented Reality Deployed In The US Navy

ugmented Reality technology is often seen as just a futuristic gamified application, but the reality is that AR technology has an abundance of uses to enhance and optimise everyday life. 

Now industry leaders are taking note and finding countless applications for the maturing and diverse technology, and its benefits are very real. AR technology is now being used across sectors such as: retail, healthcare, education and now, add the US Navy to that group. 

The US Navy has contracted AVATAR Partners, innovators in XR, who develop software solutions for heavy-duty industry and defence. AVATAR Partners will be providing the US Navy with its Simplified, Intelligent AR Quality Assurance (SIA-QA) solution, which will focus on supporting aircraft wiring maintenance for the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) Boeing V-22 Osprey aircraft.

The AR automatic QA system combines instruction and AI-based performance assessment in a single solution to help inspectors rapidly observe "as-is" versus "should be" conditions to speed installation and increase accuracy.

In a recent interview with IndustryWeek, AVATAR Partners Technical Director Michael Davis discussed the dynamic and highly variable nature of the inspection environment, which can bring challenges to implementing object and photo recognition to determine discrepancies in aircraft harness installation.

Davis stated:

“These variances in the environment could include different lighting conditions, personnel and support equipment movement and multiple aircraft configurations… Understanding the expected boundaries of the environment within the AR experience will allow the solution to capture and adjust through the use of machine learning.” 

Maintainer errors can be highly expensive and even life threatening and time-to-maintain is often insufficient to support aircraft readiness. The AVATAR Partners SIA-QA solution provides refresher training for aircraft technicians who have completed tours of duty away from the system for which they were trained. 

AVATAR Partners CEO and Founder Marlo Brooke stated: 

"We are pleased to have the opportunity of helping to improve aircraft readiness through on-demand technician training that provides knowledge at the point of need… Applying military-grade augmented reality provides the resources needed to establish critical training regimens that support a risk-managed framework for preparation and deployment."