Human-Centered Development and Evaluation of an AR-Assistance System to Support Maintenance and Service Operations at LNG Ship Valves

The use of LNG propulsion in ships has significant environmental benefits but also creates challenges in handling the LNG. Due to the safety regulations, the maintenance of the LNG ship systems is essential and requires a high degree of reliability and accuracy. Here, digital assistance systems, e.g., based on Augment-ed Reality (AR) technology, can support the maintenance and service purposes of LNG ship systems by displaying additional information directly on the objects to be serviced. Thus, this paper deals with the development and evaluation of a digital assistance system using AR technology. The developed assistance system based on an Android smartphone enables users to access maintenance instruc-tions and manuals, simplifies spare parts' ordering, and supports the work pro-cess step by step through context-sensitive virtualizations. Its evaluation was conducted as a combined quantitative and qualitative user study. Overall, the assistance system offers promising potentials for reducing workload and improv-ing processes.