XR for Workplace Safety: The SUN Horizon Project

Hololight and its fellow partners launched the "SUN" project within the Horizon framework of the EU. Named “The Social and hUman ceNtered XR“ (SUN), the project aimed to better augment the physical world by researching advancements in XR applications that will help social and human interaction. In three pilots, the various novel SUN technologies were assessed: "Extended reality for rehabilitation", "Extended reality for people with serious mobility and verbal communication diseases", and “Extended reality for safety and social interaction at work”. Hololight led the implementation of the latter pilot, making use of Hololight Space, which allows users to view and work with 3D CAD files in an XR environment.

XR for Safer Work 

The issue in focus is an important one: workplace safety. In potentially dangerous workplaces, a high degree of awareness, involvement, and teamwork is essential for employees to avoid and prevent accidents and mistakes. Extended reality — encompassing Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality — provides an enormous potential in this regard.

Through XR, employees can easily receive information in advance and in real time, which permits a heightened awareness of potentially hazardous situations while at work. Real-time communication between employees, training through accurate simulations, and real-time updated information on the state of the working environment contribute to a safer industry. Hololight Space and Hololight's XR streaming technology were adapted to enhance social interactions between employees.

Through these solutions, workers can, for example, better grasp concepts such as safety and security protocols. In a safe yet realistic environment for practice, they can securely re-enact critical situations like moving around in potentially dangerous environments. Immersive experiences seamlessly integrate several aspects not available in non-immersive settings, such as better contextualization and real-time decision-making feedback.

Overall, XR enables designing, prototyping, quality assurance, as well as technical industrial training and education. These features not only improve and accelerate industrial processes, but also increase safety for workers dealing with complex machines.

Hololight Space features utilised in the pilot scenario included high-quality 3D content import and visualization of data-intensive models, the merging of CAD and engineering designs with the real world, the ability to work with complex holograms through placing, rotating, adjusting, resizing, slicing and more, and collaboration with colleagues, partners, or customers in XR — both locally and globally.