The application of augmented reality to enhancing man machine systems

• Main Author: Tay, Zijing
• Other Authors: Seet Gim Lee, Gerald
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering::Robots
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/68487
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Machines, and robots in recent years, have been an integral part of the industry and economy and have been crucial tools to the progress of man. The extent of their application is immeasurable, impacting on everyday aspects of human life. Man’s relationship with machines has been a long-standing one. From primitive tools in the past to the complex robots of today, the nature of man machine systems have been ever-evolving. Motivated by technological advancement and changing industrial needs, the role of robots in these systems have evolved over time. Consequently, the way in which man interact with machines through interfaces have had to evolve to suit the changing dynamics of man machine systems. The man machine systems of tomorrow are shifting toward relationships centered on collaboration between man and machines, bringing with them a new set of challenges in designing man machine interfaces that can facilitate this collaborative nature. The interaction necessary to achieve such collaboration would require a human-centric system design with natural and intuitive interfaces. The emergence of augmented reality technology was believed to be able to fulfill these needs and thus the application of augmented reality to enhancing man machine systems served as the motivation of this project. This project examined the principles of augmented reality as well as the nature of collaborative man machine systems in order to understand the potential for augmented reality to be applied to a man machine interface. This understanding was subsequently demonstrated in the design of a framework that would describe man machine interaction of a collaborative nature. The proposed system design sought to apply augmented reality as an interface that would allow the man and machine to collaborate meaningfully with respect to the environment to accomplish a goal. A simplified framework was identified and implemented in order to assess its impact as an interface in facilitating a collaborative man machine system. The resulting implemented augmented reality interface was basic but proved to be impactful in the goal of a human-centric system with enhanced feedback to the user, and highlights the possibility for more extensive work to be done in this area that could allow for greater effectiveness in man machine collaboration.