Remote Assistance

Remote assistance technology has received a serious boost in the past year. Wearable devices, such as smart glasses, had been available on the market for some time, but remote assistance has seen a huge increase in their use. These devices allow the employee to view instructions in a hands-free manner. The built-in camera films what the employee sees and shares this image with the remote expert, who can follow along via his PC or tablet. If necessary, the expert can make notes on these images, which in turn are shown to the employee via a display on the glasses. Built-in microphones and speakers ensure that they can communicate smoothly with each other.

Besides the growing sales of devices, a lot of applications have been developed that enable remote assistance. All these applications allow an employee and an expert to interact, but the difference is in the additional functionalities. Some applications allow annotations or document sharing, while others can bring multiple experts into the same call or record sessions.

Our role?

Our role as an independent party is to map the remote assistance landscape and help companies and organisations in Flanders in their search for a good remote assistance solution. For instance, we look at the pros and cons of different devices and applications. We examine which combinations are possible, in order to put together the best solution for every situation. All the information we collect can be found in our online database, which you can find on the Wiki page.

Based on their many research projects, Flanders Make and Howest have a lot of experience in this field and offer this knowledge in this project, so that companies and organisations can use this technology in applications where physical assistance is not or hardly feasible because of, for instance, safety (social distancing, dangerous environments) or accessibility (small spaces, scattered sites).