Saab Australia, based in Adelaide, is using the advanced techniques as part of its training programme for advanced engineers across the globe. The technology being used is the Microsoft HoloLens 3D Platform, which projects images to users through goggles. It allows workers to inspect complex components without building expensive prototypes.
The company has identified three major streams across which the technology can add value: defence and security, the enterprise market and internal applications for the company’s own development.
Inger Lawes, Saab head of training and simulation, said the company wants “to explore applied markets such as using HoloLens to support sophisticated manufacturing”.
“Most design work these days is done on a computer and is called model-based design. What we want to do is support model-based assembly where the models that are designed on a computer are represented holographically,” he continued.
Lawes also revealed that the early parts of the process involved using LEGO to form basic models.
“We’re going to use model-based assembly software as the background but we’re going to use LEGO components,” he said.
“Everyone understands LEGO so it is a fantastic vehicle to demonstrate this sort of thing and get people as enthusiastic as we are, and prove to them that you can build things in this environment; and if we can build it with LEGO we can do it with everything else.”
A version of this story first appeared in The Lead South Australia via Creative Commons
