Background: Maintenance is one of the most important aspects of any modern military’s ability to conduct combat operations as reflected in the fact that the DoD allocated over $292 billion to operations and maintenance in 2020. The amount of time and resources required to perform maintenance has increased as weapons and equipment have become more advanced, therefore, leadership is motivated to find and implement streamlining methods. One technology which has significant capability to improve military maintenance speed and accuracy is augmented reality (AR). AR can function as a job aid to guide personnel as they conduct maintenance to improve performance.
Methods: We conducted a counterbalanced experiment to test the effect of using AR to assist personnel in a common aviation maintenance task under two different conditions: AR guidance or traditional desktop instructions. Completion time and accuracy were the main outcome measures. Subjects were personnel at the Center for Naval Aviation Technical Training who would conduct such maintenance in their regular jobs in squadrons and were grouped based upon their previous maintenance experience into two groups, novice (n = 17) and expert (n = 17). All subjects completed both conditions, with half completing the task first with AR guidance then with traditional desktop instructions. The other half completed the task in the opposite order. We predicted that novices would benefit more from AR guidance than experts.
Results: Results were consistent with our prediction. Novices showed statistically significant faster completion times under the AR condition than the traditional desktop instructions. Experts had a nonsignificant improvement in completion time under AR than the traditional condition. Because subjects rarely made errors, we were unable to assess accuracy. Additionally, novices reported that AR was easier to use than the traditional method; experts reported the two methods as equivalent in ease of use.
Keywords
AUGMENTED AND VIRTUAL REALITY (AR/VR),HEAD-MOUNTED DISPLAYS
Additional Keywords
Maintenance,