System-based concept for a mixed reality supported maintenance phase of an industrial plant

Abstract

Inspection and maintenance processes have been researched for many years. However, the possible applications of extended reality in these processes is a new field of research that has to be developed. Within current paper an approach to optimize the existing, analogously documented processes by using extended reality is presented. The maintenance of an industrial plant is mainly based on analogue and manual methods and processes. Usually all maintenance information is documented analogously and transferred to the corresponding management systems with a certain delay after the inspection. The time delay can lead to data loss and errors and can also occur during transmission to an appropriate system. In the future, the maintenance data and changes to the real object should be determined digital and transferred to the data management system in real time. A digital twin should enable the unambiguous assignment of the data to the corresponding elements and thus represent a virtual representation of the AS-IS state of the industrial plant. The required process data will be collected in Mixed Reality and then transferred to a PDM-System. To transfer the data records without loss, a system model can be used as an interface between the Microsoft HoloLens mixed reality device and the PDM system. The HoloLens enables the determination of a coordinate point from the combination of gaze vector and the position of the observer. The coupled system model allows this coordinate point to be compared with a coordinate field within the reference model to determine the component. This paper presents a concept to create a system-based digital twin for the maintenance phase of an industrial plant to enable the data transmission from mixed reality to a PDM-System.