XR Use Case Deep Dive 2 : Situational Awareness
This is my second article in a series exploring key use cases for XR technologies. Again, it will feature commentary and video clips of software solutions to enhance the understanding of each use case. The examples are drawn from solutions with which I am acquainted. However, the intention is not to endorse any specific solution, as the optimal choice is highly dependent on individual use cases, the company, the operational environment, and the users. With the rapid growth in the availability of XR software solutions, it's crucial to select the one that best fits your unique needs and context.
In my post on XR Delivering Data in Context I already introduced many of the themes involved in Situational Awareness, so i you haven’t read that article I highly recommend reading it before this one.
During my career I have done several First Aid Courses, and in all of those courses we were taught about the importance of Situational Awareness. These courses all had practical elements where we entered a scene where an accident had happened. A key to passing the practical exam on the course was assessing the accident scene for threats and hazards and to get context of how an accident occurred. This is the essence of Situational Awareness.
As mentioned in my previous article, one of the key functions of a Spatial Twin is to bring the context of “the place” to a perspective. The primary difference between a spatial twin and a digital twin lies in the context of what information they measure and how they optimise efficiency within a workspace. Here’s a breakdown:
Digital Twin:
A virtual representation of a physical product, process, person, or place.
Mirrors and measures its physical counterpart in real time, historically or in a future state in the event of simulation.
Provides ongoing communication with the real-world equivalent.
Used for monitoring, simulation, and optimisation.
Commonly used in manufacturing, maintenance, and IoT applications.
Spatial Twin:
Part of the broader concept of spatial computing.
Focuses on the interaction between the physical and digital realms.
Understands, conceptualises, and even manipulates objects in the physical world.
Enables virtual interaction within a realistic environment.
Keeps up-to-date based on real-time data, context, and algorithmic reasoning.
To summarise, Digital Twins offer real-time monitoring, and Spatial Twins connect the physical and digital realms, enabling interactive experiences. Situational Awareness underpins the provision of a Spatial Twin, providing context of a location, individual, and work goal or event. Even without an existing Digital Twin or Spatial Twin application, Situational Awareness XR Experiences can be created, serving as foundational elements for developing a Spatial Twin capability.
Lets look at an example in an Oil Refinery. In an oil refinery, pipelines, tanks, and other critical infrastructure are subject to corrosion, wear, and structural degradation over time. Detecting these issues early is crucial for safety and efficiency.
Oil Refinery Operators invest heavily in Asset Integrity Management processes to minimise the risks of such issues. Situational Awareness XR Experiences can bring significant benefits to Asset Integrity Management processes. For example:
Predictive Maintenance
By integrating IoT data from physical refinery operations and backend applications and knowledge bases with AI and Machine Vision, and delivering it in the context of the location to remote or local resources, they can proactively predict potential equipment failures and risks to planned work; or even plan work more effectively during a preparation phase. This proactive planning of maintenance activities minimises downtime and reduces the risk of unforeseen breakdowns or complications with planned activities.
Compliance Monitoring
Asset integrity management requires compliance with safety regulations and adherence to industry standards. Situational Awareness Experiences can offer a comprehensive perspective of localised compliance rules and monitor safety measures and barriers by superimposing virtual compliance rules and virtual safety barriers onto the physical environment.
Risk Assessment and Mitigation
These experiences enable staff to visualise operations, status, and infrastructure within a locational context. By superimposing digital data onto the physical world, they can contextualize factors such as corrosion rates, stress levels, and other aspects related to integrity. This allows them to pinpoint areas of high risk and potential problems, aiding in the decision-making process for risk mitigation to ensure that work is carried out with minimal risk.
Emergency Response Planning
In emergencies like leaks, fires, or natural disasters, Situational Awareness experiences can assist responders in virtually navigating the facility for remote coordination or provide augmented experiences for on-site staff. These tools enable viewing digital overlays that highlight essential information, valve shut-off locations, and risk assessments during Incident Management operations. In addition Situational Awareness Training can be invaluable to train staff in real environments regarding Emergency Procedures, see the example Video below.
There are many software solutions that allow you to build XR Experiences to meet the use cases as described above. One of these solutions is Vuforia from PTC, that when implemented with the PTC Thingworx platform, these experiences can be integrated into an organisations existing infrastructure to access data and other application capabilities and anchor such digital elements to the physical world. See the overview of Vuforia Studio below:
Using PTC Vuforia Area Targets help establish the context of location, and Model Targets use CAD geometry to anchor 3D models and data to the physical world. See the video below on Vuforia Engine:
If you have an hour to spare, I strongly suggest watching a YouTube video that explores the capabilities of PTC Vuforia and XR. It's an insightful look into the potential of these technologies.
Again, these examples are drawn from solutions with which I am acquainted. However, the intention is not to endorse any specific solution, as the optimal choice is highly dependent on individual use cases, the company, the operational environment, and the users. With the rapid growth in the availability of XR software solutions, it's crucial to select the one that best fits your unique needs and context. I discuss PTC solutions here as an example; choose the best solution for your environment and needs.
Regardless of the nature of our work, it invariably involves making decisions. The success of any task is closely linked to the quality and promptness of these decisions. Situational Awareness XR Experiences, which present the necessary data and application functions to facilitate and initiate decisions directly before us, without the need for searching, will pave the way for a new way of working that promises much more successful outcomes.