Knowledge Transfer via Augmented Reality (AR): A Case Study of AR in Damage Control Equipment Maintenance Training in the Navy

Abstract

The art of transferring knowledge from one source to another is how humankind has built most of the vast wisdom we enjoy today. Knowledge sharing occurs at much higher rates today due to new digital ways of capturing and sharing knowledge. Recent literature suggests that extended reality-based training can benefit organizations. This paper explores the capabilities of Augmented Reality (AR), a subset of extended reality, in transferring technical knowledge within an organization. It is not well understood how the benefits of AR based training change depending on the complexity of the task. We attempt to address this gap by developing HoloLens2 based authored AR guides for four maintenance tasks of differing complexity and testing with twenty-three participants of differing levels of experience. Each participant, recruited from the Royal New Zealand Navy, performed two simple and two complex tasks. The participants used AR guides for one simple and one complex task. They completed the remaining two tasks with traditional paper instructions. The training effectiveness is assessed by time of completion of tasks, count of errors, and participants’ cognitive load. The participants using AR made fewer errors and reported a lower cognitive load for the training. However, the time spent on the AR training was longer for three of the four tasks.