Attendees will gain insight into the following topics:

• What is the goal of the US Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, and, in particular, the Public Safety Communications Research program?
• How is NIST studying human factors and developing AR and VR tools for Public Safety professionals?
• What have the challenge programs and initiatives produced to date?
• How has the Public Safety community responded to the technology demonstrations and use cases?
• How is usability for Public Safety measured and improved?

The Department of Human Factors and Behavioral Neurobiology at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach trains students to understand the interactions of humans with other elements of a system. From neuroscience to human factors psychology, Embry-Riddle is the only university in the offering a bachelor’s, a master’s, and a Ph.D. degree program in Human Factors Psychology as well as a bachelor’s in aerospace physiology.

Background And Achievements

The Department of Human Factors and Behavioral Neurobiology at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach is one of the largest human factors departments in the US. With 12 faculty, the department has eight research labs including Aerospace Physiology, Aging, Perception & Performance, Applied Cognition & Training Science, Game-based Education & Advanced Research Studies, Research Engineering and Applied Collaborations in Healthcare, Research in User eXperience, and Systems and Human Applied Research Performance.

AREA: How would you describe Qualcomm’s role in the enterprise AR ecosystem?

Vogelsang: We’re a technology
provider in the ecosystem, delivering chipsets that power AR experiences. Our
Qualcomm Snapdragon platform provides the best silicon/chipset that we can
customize to meet the needs of the XR enterprise ecosystem. You’ll see them in
products today from customers like Vuzix and RealWear. Then there’s the
Microsoft HoloLens 2 that was announced at Mobile World Congress; it uses our Snapdragon
850 Mobile Platform. Vuzix also announced at Mobile World Congress their M400
platform, which is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 platform. Finally,
there are new, emerging OEMs, such as nreal, Realmax, Shadow Creator, and ThirdEye.
Our goal is to optimize technology to put more capability in lighter weight
designs that can drive more immersive experiences at the lowest possible power
levels, but with full connectivity.

AREA: People might have thought that Qualcomm was getting out of AR
when it sold the Vuforia business to PTC three years ago, but the company is
still very much committed to VR and AR, isn’t it?

Vogelsang: That’s correct. We’ve
been working for over a decade in this space. We have a long history of
computer vision expertise and exploring how to build the technology and optimize
it in hardware in ways that will allow more immersive experiences while running
at the lowest possible power. To date, that has been predominantly on smartphones.
However, our long-term vision is that within a decade, we will start
transitioning from a handheld device (smartphone) to a head-worn device or a
sleek AR glass that people use the whole day. And that’s really what we’re
looking at: how do we accelerate that innovation and make those kinds of experiences
happen – initially for enterprises, but long term for consumers.

AREA: So, you expect enterprises to be the early adopters of
wearables, then the consumer market will develop from there?

Vogelsang: That’s right. Today,
in the wearable form factor, there’s a spectrum of devices, from Assisted Reality
devices for remote expert or guided work instructions, to full augmented or
mixed reality devices like HoloLens or Magic Leap. Enterprises are willing to
adopt these technologies if they solve a problem and deliver an ROI – and we’re
excited about that. But long term, we think that the technology needs to get
smaller, lighter weight, and more ergonomic.  More like your standard eyeglasses. Because of
these size requirements, that’s going to be particularly challenging
technically. To deliver an immersive experience at the lowest possible power
requires deep systems expertise. That’s right in Qualcomm’s wheelhouse. It’s
going to take a few years for the industry to deliver mass adoption of consumer
class AR eyewear. So for the short term, the enterprise is going to be doing a
lot to drive the market.

AREA: How closely do you work with wearables manufacturers?

Vogelsang: We work really
closely with them on their products and roadmaps, collaborating with them to
achieve their market objectives. There are always tradeoffs as OEMS balance
cost, weight, form factor and ergonomics, optics and display capability, performance,
thermals, and often these impact immersiveness. And so we work really closely
with them to understand their use cases and objectives and then help them with
hardware, software, and support to meet their objectives. We also give them
insight into future technology developments and their future requirements
inform our chipset roadmap. We can’t solve all the problems. Things like
displays and optics as well as camera modules are a big part of the equation in
building an AR device, and while we don’t build those technologies, we work
closely with the suppliers of these components and assist OEMs with integration
through our reference designs and HMD Accelerator Program, which pre-validates
and qualifies components so OEMs can get to market more quickly.  

AREA: It seems as if technologies are starting to converge in new
ways: 5G networks, Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, and AR. Do
you get that impression as well?

Vogelsang: Definitely. We see
5G as the connectivity fabric that’s going to allow the mobile network to not
only interconnect people, but also interconnect and control machines and
objects and devices. 5G is going to deliver performance and efficiency that
will enable these new experiences and connect new industries, delivering multi-gigabit-per-second
rates of connectivity at ultra-low latency. Latency is hugely important when it
comes to Augmented and Virtual Reality experiences. And of course, 5G means more
capacity. But AI is already being used in Augmented Reality experiences, enabling
things like head tracking, hand tracking, 3D reconstruction and object
recognition or estimating light. AI is a really important part of that. And I
think 5G also will enable some capabilities to be moved off the device to the
edge of the mobile network – taking some capability and moving it to be
processed at the network edge. And that ultimately will help us enable lighter
weight designs with richer, more immersive graphics at that low power threshold
that we need. So all three – 5G, AI and AR – are coming together. And I think
IoT will be a part of AR in terms of syndicating information contextually about
the environment in an enterprise to an AR experience. IoT will feed the
insights, which will be bubbled up as AR experiences.

AREA: What do you hope to get out of being a member of the AREA?

Vogelsang: Qualcomm’s
customers are OEMs. We don’t sell to end customers, the people who would buy
those devices or experiences. However, we do need to understand what their
needs are so that we can better evolve our technology roadmap to support where
those end users want to go. So, one of the things that excites us about
becoming a member of the AREA is to begin hearing directly from some of the end
customers who are deploying wearable AR technology. We know this is a marathon
and we believe XR – spanning both Augmented and Virtual Reality – will be the
next computing platform. So, we’re taking a long-term view and investing now in
the technology that will enable this market. As a result, we’re very interested
in learning from other AREA members about how the technology is being applied
today to solve concrete problems in the enterprise so we can inform our roadmap.
Those learnings will help us deliver products that can accelerate the pace of innovation
and grow the overall AR wearable market. 

We’re doing some trials and
proofs of concept and other things where we get more directly engaged with end
customer use cases. So, being able to collaborate with other AREA members in
that space would be really good. Also, we’d like to get involved in the
committees. We have a human factors team here, and I’d like to get them engaged
with the work that’s being done on the human factors side. While we don’t build
end devices ourselves, we still need to understand as we’re building out
technology how human factors, such as weight, size, or thermals impact the user
experience and ergonomics.

We’d also like to get involved
in requirements. We think we’d really benefit from learning more about requirements
from a horizontal cross-section of the AREA membership. And finally, I think
we’d like to get involved in the marketing side, as well. We would be
interested in using our platform to help tell the story and accelerate industry
adoption.

AREA: Where do you see things headed in XR over the next three to five
years? What are the next big milestones people should be looking for?

Vogelsang: I think that we’ll
see a transition from smart glasses or Assisted Reality experiences to more
Augmented Reality or spatial immersive computing type experiences. Over the
next few years, that transition will really start to accelerate. We’re already seeing
the early promise of what’s to come with technology such as HoloLens or Magic
Leap. I’m really excited about seeing the companies who are deploying smart
glasses or Assisted Reality experiences today start to adopt Augmented Reality
or immersive computing in a much larger way.

The benefits of executing joint research projects, sharing results and spreading research costs across members were a few of the original motivations for the formation of the AREA.

Today members can benefit from past and current AREA-directed and financed research projects on the following topics:

– Wearable Enterprise AR Security Report

– AR ROI Best Practice Report and Use Case

– AR Human Factors and Safety Report and Case Study

– AR in Manufacturing

– Best practices when merging IoT, AI and AR

(if your organization is an AREA member but you don’t have access to the member portal or if you seek access to deliverables from past projects, please contact Mark Sage to request).

Increasing Impact and Value

Responding to our members’ growing and wide-ranging research interests we are looking at ways to increase the AREA’s research throughput capability.

Therefore, the Research Committee invites members to contribute to a joint Research Agenda which will guide research by non-member organizations as well as member-led, AREA coordinated research efforts. This new workstream is in addition to continuing the current practice of AREA-directed and funded research projects (see list above) and will focus on overlaps in members current research programs or roadmaps.

In order to formulate the first AREA Research Agenda without exposing specific members’ strategic plans or burning problems, this initiative will:

1. Detect and capture overlaps in research interests in a confidential manner
2. Explore new ways to share existing research resources for common objectives  

A first step towards the above goals will be to identify internal member research stakeholders and conduct interviews with them to capture:

• Members’ research interests (their own research agenda) and possibly current research projects,
• Compile any (past) research work which could be relevant for and shared with other members of the AREA,
• Any recommendations or observations on research methodologies and suppliers

(All conversations fall under the AREA’s NDA policy)

In parallel, this project will identify and capture the research interests/programs of AREA academic members and their availability/capacity to support and/or carry out primary & secondary research (e.g., literature reviews or meta-analyses).

If you have any questions and/or would like to contribute to this research, please contact the research team.

The Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) kindly
hosted the workshop which saw more than 70 participants from a range of
industries, including energy/utilities, buildings and infrastructure,
aerospace, defence, industrial equipment, mining, automotive and consumer high
tech, converge on the shop floor of Factory 2050 for a jam-packed series of
presentations, interactive workshops, demonstrations and networking.

Day 1 was opened by AREA Executive Director Mark Sage and
AREA President Paul Davies, who delivered a high-level overview of AR,
supported by leading companies and AREA members who have deployed AR.
ExxonMobil, Welsh Water and Boeing all helped paint a detailed picture by
sharing their use cases, experiences and challenges.

We then heard from Jordi Boza of Vuzix who shared his
thoughts and ideas of how to get started in AR followed by a presentation by
Atheer that took attendees through a case study showing how Porsche transformed
automotive dealer services with AR.

The last session of the day was an intense, hands-on session
presented by the AREA’s Dr. Michael Rygol who helped attendees get under the
skin of AR by discussing and documenting use cases and their key requirements
in working groups. Presentations by attendees led to some healthy debate and
interesting insights. The day was finished off with an informal networking
session where participants had the opportunity to take a closer look at some of
the organisations who were there with demo tables and to connect with
colleagues both old and new.

The second day was an early start at 8am and then straight
into a presentation from Theorem Solutions on the cognitive gap and potential
of XR technologies followed by a lively panel discussion on workforce
challenges led by AREA Board member Christine Perey of PEREY Research &
Consulting with representation from Boeing, ExxonMobil and VW Group UK. We then
explored more on the AREA’s Research capability by looking at past projects
before jumping into a master class on AR human-centred design from London-based
ThreeSixtyReality. A full agenda took us into a presentation on Human Factors
and related safety challenges and a pre-recorded session on overcoming the
challenges of AR security followed by a polished presentation from Microsoft on
their MR strategy and the eagerly anticipated HoloLens 2. A three-minute
provider pitch finished off a jam-packed day before participants headed home.

In summary, the depth and range of
content and sessions provided participants with a framework within which to navigate
(or continue navigating) their own AR journeys. Among the takeaways:

• Staying in the AR game
  is tough. Organisations should consider both the opportunities and limitations of
  the current evolving environment.
• The AR supplier ecosystem
  is continuing to grow, offering new and varied opportunities.
• Clearer understanding
  and definition of the barriers to adoption (including safety, security, user
  experience) and paths forward to overcome these is essential.
• Sound, appropriate use
  cases are key to learning more about AR. The number of use cases where AR
  delivers value continues to grow (and we need to capture and share these –
  hence the ASoN initiative from the AREA).
• Digital eyewear to
  support AR is maturing rapidly (e.g., new models from Vuzix and Microsoft).
  Ensure you stay informed on new developments.
• There is broad interest
  in AR across a number of industries – from industrial flooring to mining.
• Considering the business
  benefits of AR is essential to obtaining buy-in from stakeholders and
  decision-makers.
• There may be significant
  issues around safety and security where AR is concerned. Don’t ignore them.

The AREA annual workshop is an opportunity for members and non-members to connect, learn and share more on AR. We at the AREA are fortunate to have the opportunity to do this annually and it wouldn’t be possible this year without the valuable support of AREA members and our sponsors: Theorem Solutions, PTC, Vuzix and Atheer.