SHIPBOARD 3-M PROGRAM SUPPLEMENTED BY AR TECHNOLOGY

Abstract

The Navy maintenance program suffers from many inefficiencies, including poor labeling practices, difficult component identification, unspecific descriptions of component location in spaces for repair, and complicated diagrams. Maintenance programs onboard United States Naval Ships are a critical program to ensure they are prepared for combat and their duties by doing routine maintenance to equipment and keeping them in optimal working condition through repair. As mission difficulty and pace increases, these programs need to be carried out with fewer errors and more efficiently. Augmented reality (AR) technology can be used to identify and label all components in a space to assist with correctly identifying equipment and provide virtual instructions with critical, step-by-step information for conducting maintenance, inspections, repair work, and Damage Control (DC) events. Utilizing AR technology, Sailors or outside activity (i.e., contractors and shore-based repair facility Sailors) can enter a ship compartment and rapidly and accurately carry out a variety of maintenance program tasks. This technology would be particularly beneficial to inexperienced Sailors and outside activity by bolstering their limited knowledge and assisting them in the identification and prioritization of critical tasks and items, while simultaneously reducing the time required, and number of errors committed, while performing those tasks.