Breaking down the Barriers between the Digital and the Real: Mixed Reality applied to battery manufacturing R&D and Training

In a scenario in which the manufacturing of high-performance, safe batteries on an unprecedented large scale is crucial for the energy transition and fight against climate change, research laboratories and production industries are facing problems due to the lack of efficient data management and training tools. In this context, the use of intelligent devices plays an important role on the path towards the optimization of the manufacturing process and the enhancement of the battery performance while reducing production costs. In this paper, we show how Mixed Reality devices can be used for data collection and training in real-time in research laboratories and pilot lines. We introduce a Mixed Reality application run on Microsoft HoloLens 2 glasses, and provide a deep analysis on the ergonomic and usability analysis performed, and how we solved the problems found during its development. Thanks to this application, users can collect data while keeping their hands free and receive advice in real time to design and build batteries with tailored properties. This solves the problem of data management in dangerous environments, like research laboratories dealing with toxic chemical products, in which data collection becomes the most challenging part. Now, thanks to Mixed Reality, users can collect data in the place of work, save this data automatically on a server and exploit this data to receive advice and feedback back through the Mixed Reality device. It can also be used to support learning in the experimental environment.