Comparing Video and Augmented Reality Assistance in Manual Assembly

Manual work is a cornerstone of manufacturing. This holds true today, as well as for future factories of the Industry 4.0 era. Use cases of manual work are small series or highly customized products. Assistance systems that support workers in dealing with such diverse assembly processes are developed and evaluated. This paper presents an evaluation of an Augmented Reality-based assistance system which is integrated in a manual workstation. This system is compared with video-based assistance regarding performance, user acceptance and mental workload. It shows a significantly reduced number of errors and scored better regarding time and mental workload.