Augmented Reality and Other Visualization Technologies for Manufacturing in Boeing 2011-01-2656

The Efficient Assembly, Integration & Test (EAIT) team at Boeing Research & Technology, Boeing's central technology organization, is working on multiple implementations of Augmented Reality to aid assembly at the satellite production facility in El Segundo, CA. This presentation will discuss our work to bring an Augmented Reality tool to the shop floor, integrating product design and manufacturing techniques into a synergistic backbone and how this approach can support the delivery of engineering design intent on the shop floor.

The team is developing a system to bring designer's 3D CAD models to the technicians on the shop floor, and spatially register them to live camera views of production hardware. We will discuss our work in evaluating multiple motion captures systems, how we integrated a Vicon system with Augmented Reality software, and our development of a user interface allowing technicians to manipulate the graphical display. We will also cover challenges we encountered relating to camera distortions and registration accuracy, and how we overcame them. Further discussions will cover how this work integrates with a key initiative called the Concept Center and the advantages of integrating visualization techniques, radio frequency- identification, (RFID) and quality and lean tools in a common venue for major stakeholders to work together on engineering design and manufacturing deployment.