HoloCollab: a shared virtual platform for physical assembly training using spatially-aware head-mounted displays

Today's industrial jobs require a skilled and trained workforce as tasks such as maintenance, service, and repair are becoming more complicated and more demanding. Therefore, both education and training for executing these tasks are becoming more important. Usually training is conducted on-site at designated training facilities with physical hardware. However, on-site hands-on training can be expensive as it requires designated training facilities that have to be maintained and need to be traveled to. With Augmented Reality (AR) becoming a substantial part of modern day manufacturing, using AR-based systems to train new workforces is becoming increasingly popular. In this paper, we investigate different training environments that use AR-based support during workforce training. We draw the design space for a shared collaborative AR-based learning space, and present the concept and implementation of HoloCollab which combines having a scalable virtual representation of an industrial scenario, such as assembly, with the benefit of having a trainer on-site with a trainee.