AR in industry discussed in Kazan at Holoexpo 2024

From September 9 to 12, the 21st International Conference on Holography and Applied Optical Technologies took place in Kazan.

The IKSAR team traditionally participated in the event.
On September 11, during the conference, a roundtable titled "AR Technologies in Industry: Market Growth Trends and Drivers, Real Implementations and Effects, Prospects and Forecasts" was held.
Augmented Reality (AR) is a key technology of Industry 4.0 and 5.0 and will have a decisive impact on labor productivity and professionalism, cost, reliability, safety, and the outcomes of processes in industrial and other sectors.

The global average annual growth rate of the AR market is 35%. What trends are emerging? What drivers have fueled growth over the past three years, and will continue to do so in the next three years? How are major Russian industrial companies from various sectors already implementing AR? What results and effects have been achieved, and has the mass adoption of AR started in Russia?
These questions were discussed by roundtable participants, including representatives from industrial enterprises across various sectors.

The roundtable moderator was Igor Eduardovich Gulyansky, the IKSAR product lead and Director of Innovation at INLINE GROUP JSC.

Experts included representatives from Gazprom Neft PJSC, the AGROECO group of companies, the Skolkovo Foundation, Rosatom, Alabuga Machinery, Bauman Moscow State Technical University (MSTU), as well as domestic augmented reality headset developers.

The roundtable lasted over four hours, featuring expert presentations in both online and offline formats, live demonstrations of domestic IKSAR software, and local developments in augmented reality headsets. Each presentation concluded with expert comments and a Q&A session with the audience.

Experts agreed that AR in industry is rapidly evolving worldwide and has significant growth potential in Russia. There is a lack of analytical data on the size and growth rates of the augmented reality market in Russia, covering software, devices, and services, as well as other quantitative metrics that would provide market participants with more information to forecast future development.

A large part of the discussion was devoted to AR glasses—their types, capabilities, market availability, and characteristics. Experts believe there will not be a single ideal model of AR glasses. Different types of devices need to be created for various application scenarios and operating conditions, both standalone and in combination with smartphones or other external computing units.

The discussion on application scenarios was central to the roundtable. The application sphere and potential effects define the hardware and software requirements for AR devices and technologies. Currently, the most popular scenarios in industrial companies in Russia and worldwide are equipment and machinery maintenance, various types of inspections, audits, visual checks, assembly of components, quality control, and various types of remote interactions (the so-called "Remote Expert" concept). AR glasses with computer vision capabilities and artificial intelligence technologies for recognizing and interpreting objects in individual images and video streams are also gaining momentum. In the coming years, the development of scenarios requiring stable and high-speed communication will be essential, so roundtable participants are closely monitoring the dynamics of the "Sphere" project, which is creating a modern communications and monitoring system, incorporating both existing and future space infrastructure.

Representatives of industrial companies shared their current results from implementing AR technologies and devices, as well as forecasts and suggestions for the further scaling and development of such technologies.
Throughout the event, more than 10 models of the most advanced AR glasses available for industrial use were presented in the exhibition area.

Participants could familiarize themselves with both monocular and binocular models and try out various demonstration technological processes while wearing AR glasses.
The IKSAR team expresses gratitude to the organizers for the invitation to the conference and particularly acknowledges the significant contribution of Artem Borisovich Solomashenko, head of the Holography and Waveguide Optics Laboratory at Bauman Moscow State Technical University, to the successful roundtable.