The ETSI Industry Specification Group on the Augmented Reality Framework (ISG ARF) has announced ETSI GS ARF 003, describing it as a key specification towards the interoperability of augmented reality (AR) components. Rather than a single provider to deploy AR applications and services, the ETSI framework makes provision for components from different providers to interoperate via the defined interfaces, allowing broader and quicker adoption of AR technology.
The ETSI GS ARF 003 introduces the characteristics of an AR system and describes the functional building blocks of a generic AR reference architecture and their relationships. The global architecture gives an overview of an AR system which is based on a set of hardware and software components and data describes the real world and virtual content. The functional architecture applies to both fully embedded AR systems and implementations spread over IP networks in a scalable manner with sub functions. These sub functions can either be deployed on the AR device or be provided via cloud technology.
Muriel Deschanel, chair of the ETSI ISG ARF, said: “AR can be a real asset for many use cases in industry 4.0 or in the medical sector. With the significant improvement to network performance brought by 5G, in particular in terms of bandwidth and latency, cloud services will become essential to a larger number of AR use cases,” she said.
An example of AR for industry 4.0 will be if extra staff are employed to cope with peak activity, they may not have the expertise for the job or there may not be time to train then, so AR will enable an experienced operator in another area to train, guide and give precise instructions to the new operator.
