Development of an Augmented Reality-based user interface to support maintenance fieldwork

Abstract

This paper discusses computational support for the maintenance of Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing (MEP) systems to more effectively use maintenance information. A common cause of inefficient and ineffective maintenance has been the difficulty in getting reliable, just-in-time information for in-situ maintenance work. To reduce this inefficiency in the maintenance environment, accessibility and accuracy of maintenance information must be improved. Our approach, therefore, is the development of a user interface that will produce superimposed computer graphics of equipment/facility-specific maintenance information onto a live video stream on portable computing devices, such as laptops and PDAs. This paper concentrates on elicitation of primary functions needed to support various maintenance activities as well as a prototype application being developed for the approach.