Our Innovation Analysts recently looked into emerging technologies and up-and-coming startups working on solutions for shipbuilding. As there is a large number of startups working on a wide variety of solutions, we decided to share our insights with you. This time, we are taking a look at 4 promising Augmented Reality (AR) Solutions.
Heat Map: 4 Top Augmented Reality Solutions
For our 4 top picks, we used a data-driven startup scouting approach to identify the most relevant solutions globally. The Global Startup Heat Map below highlights 4 interesting examples out of 80 relevant solutions. Depending on your specific needs, your top picks might look entirely different.
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Fostech – Holographic Computing
Augmented Reality has the most potential in areas where digital simulations meet real-world environments. It is, therefore, only natural that workplace guidance represents one of the most popular use cases of AR. The shipbuilding industry significantly benefits from equipping field workmen and technicians with augmented headsets which project the assembly instructions onto the workplace. Norwegian Fostech develops AR and mixed reality solutions to provide shipbuilding engineers and technicians with assistance and support during the building or assembly processes. Their solutions create images within applications that blend in with contents in the real world across functional areas such as sales & marketing, education & training, service & maintenance, and operations.
Newport News Shipbuilding – Interactive Manuals & Training
Servicing and making repairs on a large vessel is a complex task, especially for engineers or mechanics with little experience. Employing AR for such purposes makes onboarding and guidance easy and more interactive. USA-based giant Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS), a large corporation building and refueling US Navy aircraft carriers and submarines, see big potential in AR with regard to 3D visual overlay effect maintenance and support manuals, which guides engineers and mechanics to systematically conduct repair tasks. The company’s engineers use Microsoft’s HoloLens and proprietary pre-programmed packages to access the technology.
SHOREVIEW – Digital Nautical Guide
Situational awareness is critical for seafarers to ensure safe passage across the ocean. For this, ships rely on historic ocean data and open weather information. However, complex onboard systems are integral to making use of this data. This is why some startups offer cloud-based or AR-powered nautical guides for sailors. Spanish startup SHOREVIEW develops a digital nautical guide that provides information on coastal services and activities as well as tides, swallows, and immersed rocks.
Navantia – Quality Inspection
The final stage of shipbuilding in quality checks. Using informative checklists, quality inspectors first collect data on various topics and then enter them into a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software, which is, essentially, double work for the inspector. AR provides efficient solutions to such issues by integrating the checklists into the PLM systems themselves, overlaying such checklists onto the examiner’s headset, giving suggestions, scanning barcodes and serial numbers and even detecting deficiencies using object recognition and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The Spanish state-owned shipbuilding company, Navantia, employs AR for a variety of applications, including quality control. Their solutions include superimposing 3D Computer-Aided Design (CAD) models onto their physical counterparts for inspectors to spot differences in an efficient manner. Complete with 3D cameras scanning real objects and parts to recreate the physical structure in a digital environment, AR allows potential defects to be displayed on the user’s headset, greatly simplifying the quality control process.
What About The Other 76 Solutions?
While we believe data is key to creating insights it can be easy to be overwhelmed by it. Our ambition is to create a comprehensive overview and provide actionable innovation intelligence for your Proof of Concept (PoC), partnership, or investment targets. The 4 solutions showcased above are promising examples out of 80 we analyzed for this article. To identify the most relevant solutions based on your specific criteria and collaboration strategy, get in touch.
