Development and Estimation for Remote Collaboration System Field-AID

This paper describes a remote-collaboration system named Field-AID that alleviates shortages of skilled worker in maintenance field. This system has mainly two functions. The first is a remote-collaborative work support function based on multipoint video/voice communication. The second is a task report recording function that make it possible to record multimedia data on a task report using eXtensible Markup Language (XML). The feature of this system is that a skilled operator can record a task report while remotely instructing and assisting on-site worker. It is expected that the task report recorded by skilled operator can be used as a task manual for un-skilled on-site worker. From a viewpoint of working efficiency, for the set-up work of a system, the evaluation of this system was executed. As experimental results, we obtained the conclusion that the task report recorded during remote-collaborative work support can be used as a task manual. In some cases, the experimental results show that the report as a manual is more effective in shortening working hours than remote-collaborative-support.