Panasonic is advocating “augmented reality” software as a productivity tool for utility workers.
The software would reside on devices like tablets, smart phones, or camera-equipped drones, and be able to add utility-related information, like a location’s power assets, to the device’s visual display of a scene. The display can add information assisting with GIS asset location, asset maintenance and repair, and location of outages or underground assets.
Research by Panasonic finds that 81% of utilities surveyed expect the importance of AR for the mobile workforce to increase over the next 3 to 5 years, resulting in improved operational efficiency, improved worker safety, reduction in local system restoration time, and the like.