Mixed reality towards environmentally sustainable manufacturing: overview, barriers and design recommendations

Mixed reality (MR) stands for the seamless combination of the physical world and virtual objects, e.g. in form of augmented reality (AR) on head mounted displays or on smartphones. The underlying technologies are more and more mature and various use cases in and beyond manufacturing can be found in industry and research. Typical applications deal with e.g. support of maintenance, quality management, assembly operations or training. However, the question arises how promising MR potentials can also be tapped towards environmental sustainability in manufacturing. Against this background, this paper identifies and analyses existing MR approaches with direct or indirect contributions, but also analyses related efforts and barriers. Based on this, feasible design strategies are suggested to support the development of future environmentally sustainability oriented MR solutions for manufacturing.