A Comparison of 3D Models and Photographs in Augmented Reality for Assembly Procedures in Space

Objective: In future space exploration missions, where communication delays and blackouts will impact communication with NASA’s Mission Control Center (MCC), astronauts will need to perform tasks autonomously. The Virtual Intelligent Task Assistant (VITA) is intended to stand-in for MCC and help crew perform procedural tasks.

Background: The VITA project investigates the effects on human task performance of a virtual task assistant, combining procedure automation with augmented reality (AR). The VITA task assistant is designed to help the user perform maintenance and assembly tasks. A study at Johnson Space Center (JSC) investigated the use of VITA’s 3D models in AR for assembly procedures.

Method: A study conducted at the NASA Johnson Space Center compares small rover model assembly using a static 3D model to assembly using photographs to illustrate procedure steps. This study was part of the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) Campaign 7.

Results: Findings from the HERA study indicate the use of 3D models for assembly tasks reduces user workload significantly over the use of photographs for the first task repetition.

Conclusion: The significant improvement in workload and overall acceptable performance with 3D models suggests that AR designs with a 3D model may be easier to learn than designs using photographs, when the task is unfamiliar to the user.