Building intelligence into hard hats using augmented reality Friday, 21 August 2015

Hard hats have been protecting wearers for years, but clever engineering is now making them intelligent.

Los Angeles-based tech company DAQRI, has created the Smart Helmet specifically as an industrial solution using the latest in augmented reality technology.

DAQRI calls it ‘4D content’ where it overlays relevant digital information on the real world.

Using advanced sensor and navigation technology the hard hat is able to respond to its exact location in real time and recognise objects around it.

The Smart Helmet then presents the wearer with contextual information based on what he or she is seeing – such as historic readings from an instrument display or machine operation instructions.

This information is presented on transparent display screens, which drop down when needed in front of the user’s eyes and are readable in both low light and bright conditions.

The team’s mechanical engineers built a product that not only housed all the necessary technology, but continued to meet the specifications of a basic hard hat.

Software engineers at DAQRI built computer vision systems to develop interpret all of the information being picked up by the sensors.

The Smart Helmet incorporates inertial measurement, a 3D depth camera, 6DoF and Intellitrack. These are just some of the innovations explained in the August issue of Engineers Australia’s new create magazine. Members can access the digital issue of create and read the complete feature.

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