Work in Progress: A Multidisciplinary Approach for Undergraduate Research in Augmented Reality Systems

This Work-in-Progress paper presents a multidisciplinary undergraduate research project to develop an augmented reality system for the U.S. Marine Corps weapon maintenance and operation. The project utilizes low-cost, market-leading AR hardware and software to develop an interactive AR application for maintenance and operation of M16A4 rifle. The AR application contains interactive presentation and visualization of M16A4 external and internal parts and 3D animations for maintenance and troubleshooting procedures. The proposed approach can be applied to other similar weapons/equipment with minimal changes. The project will also conduct preliminary research on software framework, interface, and file structures for easy integration of different objects under the same AR application. This project contains several major tasks: 1) 3D modeling of the weapon, including all internal and external parts to be displayed in the AR application, 2) 3D printing of the weapon mockup that only requires the external parts converted from the file format used in Task 1 and further optimization of the model for 3D printing, 3) software development in Unity that utilizes mobile devices, Microsoft HoloLens, and Vuforia to generate the AR application for weapon maintenance and operation, and 4) preliminary research on software and information architecture to support efficient development of AR applications. This paper discusses the issues, benefits, and effective approaches in designing and executing multidisciplinary undergraduate research projects.