A look into augmented reality multimodal interaction designs for industrial logistics control centres of the future.

Sammanfattning: A logistics centre, or control centre, is a major component for many industries, especially those that participate in activities related to transport vehicles and logistics, for instance, the mining industry. Previous research has shown that the capabilities of humans to process a large amount of information are limited. As the flow of information continues to increase in the future, Situation Awareness (SA) and task performance can decrease. Moreover, currently, an operator is dependent and restricted to their workstation to perform any necessary task, which is also a major hindrance that is being faced. This thesis project used Augmented Reality (AR) to tackle these problems and look at how the user experience of logistics operators working in these control centres could look like and improve in the next few decades. An augmented reality multimodal prototype was developed using a variety of technologies during this thesis project. The prototype was evaluated through both qualitative and quantitative methods. Six subject matter experts (SMEs) were selected as participants and completed a small quantitative survey, after which they were interviewed for more in-depth feedback. Results show a positive approval rating for the prototype, both in terms of usability and learnability. Additionally, a number of further solutions and possible applications emerged from interviews with the participants. Finally, it became apparent that one of the research sub-questions, about the overflow of information, could not be fully addressed by this prototype. However, possible solutions to that problem emerged from the project.