Development of AR system for generating operation program of automobile assembly system

Many manufacturing companies have used principally VR (virtual reality) technology based digital manufacturing methods for system design and process development. However, VR based digital manufacturing methods and software require perfect 3D models of whole manufacturing system in a virtual environment to implement target systems. This means that modeling tasks for new system configuration increase useless expenses and efforts. Unlike VR technology, AR (Augmented Reality) technology superimposes required virtual objects on real time image of physical manufacturing environment. Therefore, modeling time and cost for new manufacturing system can be dramatically reduced using AR technology. In this paper, the methods of design and implementation by using AR technology for the automobile assembly process such as the automobile spare tire inserting are introduced. Moreover, methods such as a multi-marker coordinate system, a threshold image, a clipping plane for virtual objects and so on, are proposed to generate the operation program for the automobile assembly process. Base on these methods, the test bed of the automobile spare tire inserting system is configured as a 5X-reduced scale and the operation program for spare tire inserting is generated.