Supporting maintenance operators using augmented reality decisionmaking: visualize, guide, decide & track

In railway maintenance activities, sophisticated socio-technical interactions are required to achieve efficient and reliable operations. Maintenance technicians carry out their daily tasks based on expertise and knowledge gained from both training and personal experience. In train design, information technology systems and operational technology systems converge, resulting in complex train failures, maintenance procedures, and activities. Troubleshooting train failures becomes extremely difficult and time-consuming as more data and information are available and filtering and selecting them becomes cumbersome. New technology developments and interactive interfaces and environments that speed up the process of understanding troubleshooting decision-making and facilitate design collaboration are required. Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that provides real-time, on-site, and structured information that offers great potential for visualizing, structuring and contextualizing data to facilitate well considered choices for decision-making. Therefore, an AR decision-making tool is developed based on structuring, visualizing and contextualizing data in an AR solution space. The tool captures real-life system conditions, comprehends troubleshooting activities, facilitates problem-solving decisions, and tracks maintenance procedures. A case study validates the tool by implementing: (1) object recognition for visualization, (2) a what-if analysis for troubleshooting directions, and (3) capturing maintenance timing and procedures. Laboratory testing is used as input for future design building blocks.