Fine-grained visual recognition for mobile AR technical support

When a hardware-related system disruption like an outage due to hard drive failure happens, the path to recovery includes checking hardware support information, describing the problem to a support representative, waiting for a field technician to arrive, hoping the technician can resolve the issue in a timely manner. Our team of researchers recently published paper "Fine-Grained Visual Recognition in Mobile Augmented Reality for Technical Support," in IEEE ISMAR 2020[1, 2], which outlines an augmented reality (AR) solution that our colleagues in IBM Technology Support Services (TSS) use to increase the rate of first-time fixes and reduce the mean time to recovery from a hardware disruption. "The most recent industry surveys have shown that the average enterprise estimates that there is an impact of approximately $8,851 for every minute of unplanned downtime in their primary computing environment." By displaying guidance over the physical environment, augmented reality support uses visual guidance to drastically reduce the effort needed to relay instructions, the number of errors and even the time required to look up service information. Technical support service providers typically maintain tens of thousands of products in order to meet the needs of their clients.