Smart glasses that ‘teleport’ experts to the field

The 2010 explosion on the oil-drilling rig Deepwater Horizon was a wake-up call for BP, the British multinational oil and gas company that operated it at the time. The resulting oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico caused major ecological damage and cost BP $20 billion in damages. Disaster can often spur the development of better practices. That was BP’s goal when it began searching for ways to improve ongoing and emergency maintenance at its oil wells.

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BP discovered that there simply aren’t enough field technicians with the experience to tackle big problems like the one that occurred on Deepwater Horizon. Since it’s not yet possible to teleport experts to the scene, “smart glasses” have emerged as the next best thing. Glasses running augmented reality software can transmit what a field technician is seeing to an offsite expert, who can then “draw” on the image to guide the technician to fix the problem. The company behind this technology now implemented across 13,000 BP wells is Israeli startup Fieldbit. Fieldbit’s flagship product, Hero, is a collaboration platform that enables technicians and experts to communicate across great distances.-- More...

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