Legos Help Showcase Manufacturing Capabilities Of Augmented Reality

Australian defense contractors hope to bolster training for advanced manufacturing with the help of Microsoft's augmented reality headset — and Legos.

The tech giant late last month selected Saab — the Swedish defense and aerospace company — to participate in its HoloLens development program.

Microsoft began shipping the HoloLens system the same day. The system, unveiled early last year, uses visual recognition and vocal cues to project images onto the wearer's field of view without external wires or an Internet connection.

Saab’s Australian arm hopes to use the HoloLens to develop 3D holographic education and training programs for its internal operations, its core defense market and other enterprise customers.

Company officials told The Lead South Australia that the technology particularly holds promise for design work in advanced manufacturing. An internal test, for example, showcased a fighter jet built out of Legos.

"You can build things in this environment and if we can build it with Lego we can do it with everything else," Inger Lawes, who heads training for Saab Australia, told The Lead.

The system will first be used for internal applications, but Saab expects to deliver a HoloLens-aided solution to its first external customer later this year.

“It just opens up an almost infinite number of possibilities to draw on information and have that information rendered as a model and just work with it," Lawes added.