Advancing Manufacturing Maintenance with Mixed Reality: Integrating HoloLens 2 in the Siemens-Festo Cyber-Physical Factory

Globalisation and digitalisation are making digital transformation inevitable, and current workforce skills and artificial intelligence regulations are not ready for the demands of a new era of smart manufacturing. Alternatively, Mixed Reality (MR) technology, which integrates real-world and computer-generated environments, offers digital transformation support by providing immersive digital spaces with unique multimodal interactions. However, the maturity of MR technology requires enhancement, particularly in its software architecture for real manufacturing applications. This study demonstrates the implementation of HoloLens 2 MR interactions within the Siemens-Festo Cyber-Physical Factory system, specifically for the offset calibration of an infrared sensor. The developed software architecture, MR functionalities, and performance data obtained from the Unity profiler suggest that there are significant opportunities for software optimisation to achieve real-time and seamless data visualisation. However, the application-specific nature of the optimisation increases the dependence on software experts thus the cost to design and maintain HoloLens 2-based manufacturing applications. Consequently, this also raises challenges for the standardised development of MR applications in the industry.