Vehicle check and remote assistance for the Swiss Armed Forces

The Swiss Army uses the Inspect AR application developed by Augment IT for repairs and in the park service - with success.

In the event of defence, every minute counts. In peacetime, the armed forces must therefore practice and prepare for the real thing. Maintenance of the machines is essential so that they are ready for action in an emergency.

However, there are long intervals between the annual refresher courses in the Swiss Armed Forces and not all troop mechanics know every vehicle.

Lieutenant Colonel in the General Staff Dominik Winter, responsible for the Strategic Initiative Innovation at the Swiss Armed Forces, is constantly looking for ways to make the tasks of the troops and operations easier. "We want to introduce ideas worth testing - i.e. those with added value for the troops - within a few months."

At the army logistics centre in Hinwil and at the mountain infantry battalion 48, troop craftsmen and workshop personnel of the Swiss Armed Forces successfully tested the AR platform. Inspect AR. With digital vehicle checks and repairs managed by professionals, they increase work efficiency.

Instructions via app: Maintenance and servicing in the military

Inspect AR helps inspection staff to quickly find their way around any vehicle. The prescribed parking service thus becomes routine without practice: the mobile app guides the personnel to the next inspection point directly on the vehicle with the help of augmented reality navigation. This way, the soldiers are sure to find every component during their checks, even when they see the vehicle for the first time. A target/actual comparison on the smartphone display ensures the correct inspection.

Troop craftsman Patrik Wolf graduated from recruit school in 2017, at which time the current Duro did not yet exist. "This digital guidance helps me enormously. Pictures show me the right places on the vehicle. I could take pictures of defects and upload them. This way I can work efficiently and independently and also take responsibility."

The app installs the maintenance staff directly on their own smartphones, which increases efficiency in handling. "Because the app runs on my own mobile phone, the operation is familiar to me. This helps to perform the task more seriously and thus increases safety," explains soldier Luca Straub.

Another efficiency gain: Inspect AR runs not only on the smartphone, but also on a headset like RealWear. The big advantage: the soldiers have their hands free and can carry out repairs with step-by-step instructions or construction plans in their field of vision.

Remote Assistance for quick repairs to vehicles

The Swiss Army also uses the RealWear headset with Inspect AR for remote support. Instead of following typical repair etiquette and immobilising a vehicle to be serviced until it is inspected on site by experts, maintenance personnel can solve many problems independently on site with remote support.

For example, vehicle diagnosticians with special knowledge of the vehicle in question connect digitally and see exactly what the staff on site sees via a camera with glasses. Via the integrated microphone, they give instructions for the repair and directly assess the implementation.

Troop craftsman Marco Storchenegger has already been able to quickly solve problems on vehicles through 1:1 team contact with guidance from experts. "This supports me both in the troop workshop and in the field. After all, the specialists of the Army Logistics Centre are not on site within a few minutes - digitally they are now."

Source: Augment IT