An augmented reality application to support maintenance – is it possible?

Augmented Reality (AR) is a trend technology with many applications for domestic consumers. On the past it was developed significant projects with the objective to introduceAR in industrial environments, but did those projects be succeeded?AR looks like to be a powerful technology, but can it be applied to industrial environments? And for the Maintenance sector in particular?This paper pretends to answer the above questions and explain how to overcome restrictions detected on previous projects by presenting some results from a project under development, (Oliveira et al., 2012).It will also be presented a Computer Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) called SMIT (Farinha et al., 2008) and its innovations with the integration of modules like active 3D models for technical assets and an AR module.Machines are enabled to do more and more complex tasks and, consequently, their aintenance is becoming more complex too. This gain of complexity might need new tools to support maintenance interventions and also demands new methodologies to implement for the technicians training in order to perform a better apprenticeship aiming to minimize the cost of each maintenance intervention. AR can give a great contribute to enhance training conditionsand technicians capabilities.Godkänd; 2013; 20130916 (sarsin