Augmented Reality for Warehouse: Aid System for Foreign Workers

Order picking in inventory warehouses is one of the challenging tasks, especially for foreign workers due to language barriers found in current order picking instructions. To address this challenge, we took the user-centered design approach and developed an augmented reality (AR) aid system using a head-worn display (HWD). Unlike most AR warehouse aid systems that present icons or texts on fixed locations of the displays, we directly overlaid visual symbols atop the real-world to better guide foreign workers' tasks. Our pilot user study demonstrated the potential of the proposed system in improving user performance, perceived safety, and usability as compared to one of the current practices for order picking, verbal instructions. This work highlights the importance of the user-centered design of AR solutions that bridge the gap between end-users and available technologies in warehouses. The proposed AR job aid system could be developed further to support more complex warehouse tasks.