Volkswagen to use AR goggles to design future cars

MANILA: Designing cars for Volkswagen engineers is going to get more exciting and futuristic, à la Jarvis but minus the voice of course, as the automaker is set to implement the use of a software tool to design production lines and spot potential issues in 2022.

In just over six weeks, Volkswagen Virtual Engineering Lab California developed augmented reality (AR) goggles that will help designers see not just individual parts, but how existing and future equipment could interact in a real environment.

Virtual planning and software design for vehicles and factory machinery has already been standard practice but AR factory goggles is a new tool that gives engineers the ability to see how the pieces will fit together in the real world.

“This helps us to make decisions quicker, and spot potential issues sooner. As we integrate new models into the existing factory, we need to make sure our virtual design data matches the reality in the plant,” said Steffan Nunn, digital factory specialist at Volkswagen Chattanooga.

The original concept for the system was sketched out in two weeks by Volkswagen’s Advanced Technologies group. By building the system in-house, Volkswagen had more room to maneuver and improve quickly while working with sensitive data, says Frantisek Zapletal, who leads the virtual engineering lab for Volkswagen Group of America.

“If we had done this with external partners, it wouldn’t have been as flexible or as fast. It’s really a communications platform, and people can use it to share ideas quickly. Once you see an idea in AR, you really believe it,” Zapletal said.

Some early examples have shown that the system was able to identify pinch points between machinery and parts that weren’t previously visible. Zapletal says the tool could have uses from office layouts to vehicle accessories design, across Volkswagen’s North American region or beyond.

“With so many people generating input into these processes, communication is really important. Anything we can do to help speed up decision making means we can get more efficient and focus on assembling high-quality vehicles for our customers,” added Nunn.