AR - Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality
Areas of use for utility companies
The changing workforce of technicians and the retirement of experienced staff results in experience-based network work being relegated to the background. Due to efficiency improvement and work organization aspects, utility technicians are required to work in wider areas and their local insights are becoming less advantageous. The solution is to provide the information collected and stored by the company, using the corresponding IT tools, that are needed to perform these tasks. A solution to this could be the application of so-called augmented reality, which is already known in other sectors.
How does it work?
In the case of public utility companies, the areas of use of AR systems based on absolute positioning, always include different ways of supporting on-site work in all cases. The most basic application is displaying a specific network segment in real space as a complement to the two-dimensional map. This is particularly useful if the given devices and wires are not visible. The AR system can help in:
- Determining the relative position to actual landmarks
- On-site visualization of other utility lines
- Display of important properties and additional information on the given devices, wires, or in their environment
Additional areas of use may include supporting fieldwork as follows:
- Determining the relative position to actual landmarks
- On-site visualization of other utility lines
- Display of important properties and additional information on the given devices, wires, or in their environment
An example of a vibration-based AR system is the life-saving aspect, e.g. indicating the location of a high-voltage cable during groundworks. This system will be optimized for wearable smart devices (clothing) in the future. Augmented Reality systems can work both offline and online. Dispatchers from the center can monitor the worker’s camera image live and place messages and image tags in the worker’s area of vision as a two-way communication channel. With this method, some of the traditional communication channels can also be replaced.