Augmented Reality in Industry 4.0 and Future Innovation Programs

Augmented Reality (AR) is worldwide recognized as one of the leading technologies of the 21st century and one of the pillars of the new industrial revolution envisaged by the Industry 4.0 international program. Several papers describe, in detail, specific applications of Augmented Reality developed to test its potentiality in a variety of fields. However, there is a lack of sources detailing the current limits of this technology in the event of its introduction in a real working environment where everyday tasks could be carried out by operators using an AR-based approach. A literature analysis to detect AR strength and weakness has been carried out, and a set of case studies has been implemented by authors to find the limits of current AR technologies in industrial applications outside the laboratory-protected environment. The outcome of this paper is that, even though Augmented Reality is a well-consolidated computer graphic technique in research applications, several improvements both from a software and hardware point of view should be introduced before its introduction in industrial operations. The originality of this paper lies in the detection of guidelines to improve the Augmented Reality potentialities in factories and industries.