Objective

Title: Investigation of Cognitive Gains in Object Assembly using Augmented Reality.

To develop an Augmented Reality application that acts as an instruction manual and perform human-subject experiments. The goal is to develop a technical solution to reduce the cognitve load on humans in the object assembly, in particular Ready-to-Assemble (RTA) products.

Highlight

Object assembly is considered a simple task but is a cognition heavy task.
There is evidence suggesting that practical difficulties faced during installation can lead to frustration, damage of the product and injury.
Hypotheses of the thesis:
- Reduce the time of assembly.
- Reduce the errors occurred during the assembly.
- Reduce the cognitive load.
- Improve the spatial problem solving ability.

Tools Used

App is developed using Unity and deployed on Microsoft HoloLens.

The Concept

RTA furniture is a component based furniture that has to be installed using a manual. These manuals are a single or multi page guides that contain text and illustrations. People have to refer these manuals continuously during installations. Unclear instructions lead to frustration.

Augmented Reality (AR) is a real-time direct or indirect view of the real-world environment that has been enhanced/augmented by adding virtual computer generated information. The ability to overlay and register information on the workspace in a spatially meaningful way allows AR to be a more effective instructional medium. AR allows the user to support the real-world with an additional set of information (sound, video, graphics). This modification of reality results in the technology functioning in order to enhance the user’s current perception of reality. AR supplements reality, rather than completely replacing it as in Virtual Reality (VR).

The AR app that I have developed helps in the installation of furniture by showing which part to pick up and animate it to the final orientation. This allows the user to install the furniture hands-free as well as help in understanding how the objects are spatially oriented with respect to each other. The app projects 3D holograms of the parts and the intermediate installation progress. There is a skeletal view of the furniture shown at all times that helps the user display the goal state of the installation. This view when cicked shows animates to show how the parts are connected to each other.

The Product

© Abhiraj Deshpande 2017