Development of a Mixed Reality Human Machine Interface – Concept, Design and Evaluation

Abstract:
The growing complex of automation in Industry 4.0 is enabled by machine-to-machine communication in a cyber-physical system and open protocols, such as OPC UA. This also facilitates production or logistic processes with various types of machines from different manufacturers. Despite the fact that a higher level of machine communication enables off-location operating in a (centralized) control unit, it does not ease maintenance or operating process on-location. This implies that HMI needs to be enabled to visualize with the same degree of flexibility as the level of complexity allows in its specific environment, turning the data-to-information abstraction into a major challenge. This work describes the development of a human-machine interface for the "CP Factory Automatic Pallet Warehouse" from Festo Didactic, located in the IIoT Test Bed of the HTW Dresden. Realized with the Microsoft HoloLens (1st gen), the interface visualizes the contents of the warehouse utilizing live data using OPC UA and MQTT. Therefore, theoretical aspects of this type of human-machine interface and its key features are pointed out and applied to the implementation.