Augmented Reality and the Edge
An Industrial Internet Consortium Tech Brief
2020-09-18

Augmented Reality and the Edge

Table of Contents
The Edge of Reality ................................................................................................................ 3
About this Tech Brief ............................................................................................................. 3
Augmented Reality and the Edge ........................................................................................... 4
Overview of AR ............................................................................................................................. 4
Choices of AR Gears ...................................................................................................................... 4
Edge Meets Reality........................................................................................................................ 4

Implementation Considerations ............................................................................................. 5
Business Considerations ........................................................................................................ 6
About the Author .................................................................................................................. 7
Michael Thomas, SAS Systems Architect, SAS ................................................................................. 7
About SAS ..................................................................................................................................... 7

Copyright .............................................................................................................................. 72Augmented Reality and the Edge

THE EDGE OF REALITY
Edge computing differs from centralized cloud services and is the final frontier of a vast networkof computing resources and their digital exchanges. However, the technical community has
overlooked the realities of workers and consumers beyond the edge. The edge digitizes these
realities with IoT sensors such as cameras, as part of the input to the IoT system. AugmentedReality (AR) devices can then bring the human into the loop of this digitization spanning from theedge to the data center. Work can be better when you make workers’ realities better.

ABOUT THIS TECH BRIEF
This Tech Brief examines the juxtaposition of the IoT edge with AR technology. Three main classesof AR technology are considered: AR headsets, AR on smart phones and spatial AR that projects
light directly onto physical reality. Each can yield “intelligent realities”, a concept that wasdeveloped in IIC publications last year that spans the entire eXtended Reality (XR) space, including
Virtual Reality (VR). We will also show how AR devices use edge computing and perform as edge
computing devices themselves.
Learn more about our ongoing Edge initiatives at https://iiconsortium.org.
Related presentations from IIC:
The Digital Transformation of Workers' Realities
Intelligent Reality at the Edge

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Augmented Reality and the Edge

AUGMENTED REALITY AND THE EDGEOVERVIEW OF AR
AR is the digital augmentation of the physical world. The term is most popularly applied towearable headgear that projects the digital augmentation directly on the wearer’s view of reality.
Commonly, this is achieved by projecting the augmentation onto glass that the wearer looks
through, which is called optical see-through. But devices can also use digital see-through, thewearer sees proximate reality as low-latency high-definition video and their eyes don’t receive
any natural light. Then the augmentation is a digital overlay on top of a digital stream of frames.

CHOICES OF AR GEARS
There are three types of displays that can support AR. Typically, AR is displayed through a special
headset; however, AR can also be done with smartphones where the smartphone screen is used
as a window on the world with AR. This form of AR is neither heads-up nor hands-free, but theuser doesn’t need to wear or buy a special headset. Spatial AR is a third form of AR that doesn’t
require a headset or a smartphone. Instead, light is projected onto physical reality. A simple usecase is to project a red dot on to an assembly in a workspace to draw a worker’s attention. Spatial
AR could include holograms too. While wearable and totable computers aren’t required withspatial AR, projectors must be built into physical reality and thus spatial AR isn’t mobile.
These three forms of AR are shown in Figure 1 “An Intelligent Reality System for Proximate
Workers and Remote Experts.” Headsets are wearables. Totables include smartphones andtablets. Ambient computing can drive spatial AR. AR applications of any type can access bothedge services as well as cloud services.

EDGE MEETS REALITY
The edge meets augmented reality in three main ways:
1. AR devices are IoT “things” on the edge. AR headsets are loaded with cameras and othersensors. They can fit into IoT architectures like other digital things. For example, theremote user could receive the video feed of a field technician so that they can help fix aproblem.
2. AR directly consumes edge analytics. An AR device can connect over Wi-Fi to edge
gateways that are receiving data directly from assets in the workers’ view. Streaminganalytics and AI can process the incoming data and pass it to the AR device. Dependingon the workload, the AR augmentation could be rendered with no noticeable latency tothe user.
3. AR devices utilize the edge for computing resources. Wearable and totable computers areconstrained devices. Wearables especially need to be lightweight. Both are constrainedby battery life. While such AR devices are themselves edge devices, they can benefit by4

Augmented Reality and the Edge
utilizing computing power of other less encumbered edge devices. Such edge devices canprovide raw computing power as well as act as a cache for contextualized content that is
retrieved from the cloud. For spatial AR, the direct augmentation of physical reality is
performed by computers that live at the edge.

Figure 1. An Intelligent Reality System for Proximate Workers and Remote Experts

IMPLEMENTATION CONSIDERATIONSAs is usually the case, the expected use cases should drive the architecture of AR at the edge.
With specific goals in mind, architects should ask:••

What are the latency requirements for users? If you want a signal from a piece ofequipment to be rendered in an AR headset without noticeable latency, all the processing
and transmission can’t take more than a few milliseconds. Human perception isn’t as
rigorous as machine-to-machine communication, but the feeling of real-time rendering
can still be difficult to achieve. Using the motion-picture standard of 24 frames per
second, you have no more than 40 milliseconds for the rendering to be no more than one
frame behind the origination of the signal. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for a roundtrip
to the cloud. But if the use case can tolerate several seconds, minutes or even hours oflatency, the architecture will be easier to implement.
How will security concerns be handled? User Interfaces (UIs) need to meet enterprisesecurity standards. If AR devices are connecting directly to edge devices though, the AR
UIs are dissimilar to desktop UIs connecting to secured cloud services. Authentication ofAR users may prove more difficult when they lack a keyboard for typing in a password.

5Augmented Reality and the Edge•

For spatial AR, the devices projecting light onto physical reality are performing
indiscriminately for all users in the physical space and don’t have a straightforward wayof checking user authorization levels. Along with latency, security concerns can constrain
AR architectural possibilities.
Must the AR application function independently of remote services? If mission-critical AR
applications are dependent on cloud services for authentication, authorization or data,then the overall operations also become dependent on those remote services. This could
mean that a manufacturing line might have to stop if a service fails or even if there aresimple password problems. Proper usage of edge computing may provide backup
mechanisms so that mission critical AR can continue even if the regular usage expects
some interfacing with the cloud.

BUSINESS CONSIDERATIONS
AR can provide an active Human Machine Interface (HMI) connecting user and the IIoT Services.
For example, for remote coaching in maintenance, an experienced master can pinpoint the spot
instantly. These experiences can be further enhanced if edge intelligence is also added in a realtime or near real-time basis.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The views expressed in the IIC Technical Brief on Edge are the contributing authors’ views and do
not necessarily represent the views of their respective employers nor those of the Industrial
Internet Consortium.

MICHAEL THOMAS, SAS SYSTEMS ARCHITECT, SAS
Michael Thomas, SAS Systems Architect, focuses on the intersectionof IoT, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence.
He has published multiple times on reality technologies for theenterprise, including an article published by the Industrial Internet
Consortium, “Intelligent Realities for Workers: Using Augmented
Reality, Virtual Reality and Beyond.” In addition to these and otherarticles, he has authored three books on programming topics and earned two patents. He has
worked at SAS for sixteen years architecting, developing and marketing software. He leads SAS’s
support of North Carolina youth chess.

ABOUT SASSAS is the leader in analytics. Through innovative software and services, SAS empowers andinspires customers around the world to transform data into intelligence. SAS gives you THE
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COPYRIGHT
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