Abstract: This study investigates using augmented reality (AR) to assist warehouse operators. By em-
ploying head-mounted displays (HMDs), the AR application overlays relevant navigational information
and inventory data directly onto the user’s field of vision, enabling a hands-free interaction system that
creates a more efficient workflow. Incorporating a marker-based AR architecture offers precise item lo-
calization and navigation support, addressing common issues such as time-consuming item checks and
potential navigational errors while moving in the warehouse. Through the assistance of these processes,
the AR system aims to enhance the efficiency and precision of warehouse operations. This research
highlights the advantages and potential challenges of implementing AR solutions in industrial settings,
emphasizing the need for innovative warehouse logistics and management approaches.
Key-Words: - AR, Warehouse, QR code, Wayfinding, Warehouse assistance, Head-Mounted Display
Received: March 9, 2024. Revised: July 11, 2024. Accepted: August 7, 2024. Published: September 25, 2024.
1 Introduction
In recent years, augmented reality (AR) has been
increasingly used in industry to assist workers.
Many companies are integrating AR tools to sup-
port their employees by providing quick access
to information and guidance, improving the ef-
ficiency and accuracy of their tasks’ execution.
AR’s versatility allows for application in areas
such as assembly, maintenance, quality control,
and workplace management, [1], [2]. One of the
particular areas where AR has a significant im-
pact is warehouse operations, where AR can sig-
nificantly improve the performance of warehouse
workers, especially when head-mounted displays
(HMDs) are used by overlaying relevant data di-
rectly into the workers’ field of vision. This hands-
free access to data, navigation support and assis-
tance in performing individual tasks ultimately
increases productivity and effectiveness.
Managing warehouse shelves is a crucial yet
time-consuming task for workers, involving care-
ful inspection of box contents, quantity verifica-
tion, and adherence to order forms to avoid errors
and unnecessary waste, [3]. Typically, employees
have to physically inspect shelves, take notes, and
update computer systems, which can lead to de-
lays and mistakes, [3]. To solve these problems,
some papers have suggested using AR to stream-
line the workflow to reduce the distance between
the worker and the computer, thus enabling a
faster and more accurate process, [4], [5]. In these
cases, AR is often implemented using markers to
identify each item or shelf location, [4], creating
a precise but complex system for tracking each
item in the inventory. This approach requires ex-
tensive maintenance and may introduce potential
error sources. Although these solutions are effec-
tive, they can be overly complex to implement and
maintain in an active warehouse environment.
Another notable application of AR in ware-
houses, particularly in industrial environments,
is assisting with wayfinding and navigation. AR
can align navigation information with the physical
world and effectively show the way to users, [6].
To achieve accurate navigation in indoor spaces
AR for warehouses: a marker-based augmented system for
navigation and inventory management
LEONARDO VEZZANI1, FEDERICA MORO2, FRANCESCO STRADA1
FEDERICO PIERI2, ANDREA BOTTINO1
1Department of Control and Computer Engineering
Politecnico di Torino
Turin
ITALY
2Cluster Reply
Reply
Turin
ITALY
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on ENVIRONMENT and DEVELOPMENT
DOI: 10.37394/232015.2024.20.42
Leonardo Vezzani, Federica Moro,
Francesco Strada, Federico Pieri, Andrea Bottino
E-ISSN: 2224-3496
453
Volume 20, 2024
where traditional geolocation technologies (e.g.
GPS) are not precise enough to work properly, re-
searchers have explored marker-based and mark-
erless navigation aids.
Markerless AR navigation has been investi-
gated for navigation in complex buildings, [7],
in multi-floor environments, [8], and in challeng-
ing indoor conditions such as dark environment,
[9]. However, markerless applications can be de-
manding and may not run smoothly on HMDs
or require additional hardware to be carried by
the user, [10]. For this reason, HMD applications
often rely on markers for precise user position-
ing. Marker-based navigation approaches rely on
QR codes or other markers that are added to the
environment, [8], [11]. Some studies use natural
markers such as signs, emergency exits, and fur-
niture to aid navigation, [12], [13], [14]. Hybrid
solutions combining markers and natural features
have been developed to provide coherent naviga-
tion instructions aligned with the physical world,
[15], [16], [17], although they are not yet opti-
mized for HMDs.
Despite extensive research on AR navigation,
few studies have focused on the use of HMDs to
provide AR navigation instructions, [6], [10], [18].
The study by [10], tested four different solutions
to support route planning and showed that AR
navigation cues that blend into the physical en-
vironment are more effective in wayfinding than
non-AR cues. However, they also require more
computational power.
This paper introduces an innovative AR appli-
cation designed for warehouse logistics, mainte-
nance, and management, creating an AR tool that
assists the operators in warehouse inspection and
navigation. This application allows warehouse op-
erators to work in the warehouse and interact
with a computer while keeping their hands free
at all times. Additionally, the AR app leverages
the operator’s positional information to provide
wayfinding assistance through the warehouse and
facilitate the interaction with the inventory data
of the nearby shelving, preventing potential er-
rors. Utilizing see-through AR HMDs and a min-
imal number of markers, this application provides
logistics and navigation support for warehouse
workers in a comprehensive solution, facilitating
seamless transitions between different tasks.
2 Methods & Results
The complexity of warehouse environments and
the high volume of goods handled daily require in-
novative solutions to increase productivity and re-
duce errors. This is where augmented reality can
play a transformative role. The work described
in this paper has emerged from Cluster Reply’s1
Augmented Warehouse initiative, which aims to
develop innovative solutions to improve ware-
house management and assist warehouse workers.
The initiative focuses on addressing specific chal-
lenges, such as optimizing shelf management, im-
proving navigation and reducing errors in inven-
tory management by implementing a tool specif-
ically designed for warehouse operators. The fol-
lowing methods were used to design and imple-
ment the AR applications developed as part of
this initiative.
2.1 Requirements
The requirements for this project are divided into
design requirements and functional requirements.
The design requirements for this project are to
develop a tool that is: (i) usable on HMDs; (ii)
easy to maintain and update; and (iii) adaptable
to different customer needs.
The functional requirements for this project
address two main tasks that workers could most
benefit from AR assistance: Storage Inspection
and Wayfinding. By assisting operators in these
tasks, we can enable quicker task execution, re-
duce fatigue, and prevent errors, thus significantly
enhancing warehouse productivity and worker
satisfaction.
Storage inspection requires the operator to ac-
cess several pieces of information simultaneously
to be most effective: location, stock, and pend-
ing tasks on a particular item are essential to
optimize the worker’s effort. For instance, the
operator should be able to find a specific shelf
among many in the warehouse quickly, know its
content, including details such as size and quan-
tity of items, and access its status in the system,
such as how many items are on the shelf are to be
shipped and where they are headed. Additionally,
the worker is required to manage the shelf’s con-
tent and update related data in real-time. Our
application aims to create a tool that allows the
user to accomplish all these tasks while staying
in front of the shelving and accessing its informa-
tion via a simple and easy-to-use AR interface to
improve workflow efficiency.
Due to its size, navigating within a large ware-
house can be another significant source of errors
and waste of time, and even an expert operator
may need help finding the desired location. For
this reason, we decided to implement a wayfind-
ing assistance tool for the workers. For effective
wayfinding assistance, AR should provide clear
instructions for workers to reach their destina-
1www.reply.com/cluster-reply/
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on ENVIRONMENT and DEVELOPMENT
DOI: 10.37394/232015.2024.20.42
Leonardo Vezzani, Federica Moro,
Francesco Strada, Federico Pieri, Andrea Bottino
E-ISSN: 2224-3496
454
Volume 20, 2024
tion within the warehouse, [8], [10]. By display-
ing a line through different corridors and areas,
the operator is guided to their destination. This
wayfinding tool optimizes movement time from
one point to another and prevents mistakes, en-
hancing overall productivity.
2.2 Implementation
To implement an AR application that offers these
features, we utilized the Unity Engine2version
2021.3.23f and the SDK MRTK 3.0 to build the
application for various HMDs. Specifically, to
prevent motion sickness in workers, we decided
to rely on a see-through HMD (i.e., Hololens 2),
as many users during preliminary tests felt pass-
through HMDs uneasy in terms of offered field of
view, distortion and latency.
Figure 1: The application architecture
We adopted a marker-based solution to opti-
mize tracking accuracy in large spaces, leveraging
2d barcodes (i.e., QR codes) to track the user’s
position within the warehouse. The application
architecture is illustrated in Fig. 1. Each shelv-
ing in the warehouse is equipped with a single QR
code that identifies it in the augmented applica-
tion. The application employs a digital twin of
the warehouse containing all the geometrical in-
formation of the building, as well as the position
and identification values for each QR code placed
in the warehouse. This digital twin is accessible
by the Augmented Warehouse Manager (AWM)
that creates a database of QR codes with their
respective positions. When HMD’s cameras de-
tect a QR code in the physical space via the QR
code manager, its value is compared with those in
the AWM’s database. If the value corresponds to
one of the QR in the database, the positional data
of the physical QR are used to align the digital
twin’s 3d mesh to the physical world by match-
ing the virtual QR code’s position with the once
read by the QR code manager. Consequently, the
application utilizes the ID and spatial data of the
2www.unity.com
QR codes to determine the user’s position in the
warehouse and provide them with the relevant in-
formation.
Moreover, as long as the worker is within read-
distance of a QR code, the system is capable of
providing accurate navigational assistance to the
user thanks to its wayfinding module, which will
calculate the shortest path to the selected desti-
nation and guide the user to it using a virtual
line drawn on the ground (Fig. 3). All the inter-
actions between the user and the AWM rely on
the AR interactive menu. This menu allows users
to interact with the inventory item, input data,
and manage the navigation.
As each QR code is attached to a shelving loca-
tion, the AWM can use the value of each QR code
to access the warehouse database and retrieve in-
formation about the stored items on the nearby
shelves. This information is then passed to the
storage inspection module, which displays it to
the operator and enables them to interact with it
using an intuitive menu. The menu is composed
of two main parts: a selection grid is overlaid to
the shelving, enabling the user to choose the de-
sired location by pointing to the grid cell they de-
sire. After the selection, an inspection menu pops
up near the worker, facilitating content inspection
and updates (Fig. 2). This includes the ability
to view detailed information about the selected
item, update its status, or perform any necessary
actions related to the item. With this implemen-
tation, fewer QR codes are needed compared to
other solutions found in the literature. For exam-
ple, [4] marked each location on the shelves with
a unique QR code that opens to more potential
failure points and heavier computational require-
ments. Additionally, relying on a smaller set of
QR codes results in a simpler and more stream-
lined maintenance process.
Figure 2: The storage inspection tool: in the fore-
ground, the interaction menu; in the background,
the shelves’ selection grid
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on ENVIRONMENT and DEVELOPMENT
DOI: 10.37394/232015.2024.20.42
Leonardo Vezzani, Federica Moro,
Francesco Strada, Federico Pieri, Andrea Bottino
E-ISSN: 2224-3496
455
Volume 20, 2024
Figure 3: The wayfinding tool: in the fore-
ground, the destination selection menu; in the
background, the line indicating the way to the
operator
2.3 Results
The implemented application meets all high-
lighted requirements. The reduced number of QR
codes allows the application to run smoothly on
a Hololens 2 with a stable frame rate. Using
only one QR code per shelving reduces the com-
putational demand for the tracking service and
prevents potential conflicts between different QR
codes while the user is near a shelving. Addition-
ally, thanks to the ease of installation and removal
of QR codes, the system can be quickly updated
without requiring significant modifications to the
application since it is only necessary to provide
the AWM with the position of the added QR code
and access to the corresponding information in
the warehouse database. Furthermore, since the
application relies on a digital twin that only re-
quires geometrical information about the building
and the QR code’s position, it facilitates seamless
replication of any physical warehouse updates in
the digital twin, making the application adapt-
able to various client needs. Finally, since the
application depends on the user’s position to pro-
vide them with shelving data, it implicitly pre-
vents the operator from selecting and operating
on the wrong shelving, eliminating the possibility
of selection errors during inspection.
3 Limitations & Future Works
Early testing of this application highlighted the
need for warehouse operators to move across dif-
ferent floors while working. When using AR
HMDs, the onboard sensors may have difficulty
tracking the user’s position when changing floors,
especially when entering an elevator. Addition-
ally, users may face issues viewing AR visual cues
while using stairs or ramps. To tackle this chal-
lenge, we have chosen to pause the navigation
when users encounter these architectural features
and instead provide them with textual directions
to move to the correct floor. Once they reach the
new floor, users are required to scan the QR code
conveniently placed in their arrival area to resume
navigation. Moreover, another limitation that we
encountered was that the user interface overlaid
on the shelving should adapt to each shelving di-
mension as they may vary widely even within the
same warehouse. To address this, future versions
should implement a dynamic interface that ad-
justs its dimensions based on the shelving data
provided by the AWM. This means that by up-
dating the shelving data in the database, the cor-
responding interface should automatically adapt
its dimensions accordingly.
This application constitutes the basis for new
features that can assist warehouse operations in
many tasks. One of the most interesting features
is the possibility of assisting workers while con-
ducting quality assurance tests or executing order
picking. Providing operators with comprehensive
instructions and verifying their correct execution
could reduce the time needed for such operations
and improve performance.
4 Conclusions
Our paper introduces an augmented reality (AR)
application specifically created to improve the
productivity and efficiency of warehouse work-
ers. The application utilizes a marker-based ap-
proach, resulting in a lightweight and portable
system that allows workers to manage inventory
while navigating the warehouse seamlessly. Fur-
thermore, the system offers real-time wayfinding
assistance to optimize operations. This tool will
enable workers to be more effective and opti-
mize their work, resulting in more efficient time
management and potentially fewer errors. Our
marker-based solution is highly adaptable to var-
ious customer needs and warehouse environments.
In the future, we plan to enhance the application
by incorporating additional functionalities, such
as control process features, to optimize warehouse
operations further.
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5 Acknowledgments
This publication is part of the project PNRR-
NGEU which has received funding from the
MUR-DM352/2022.
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DOI: 10.37394/232015.2024.20.42
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Francesco Strada, Federico Pieri, Andrea Bottino
E-ISSN: 2224-3496
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Contribution of Individual Authors to the
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The concept and design of the study were jointly
developed and approved by all authors. The ap-
plication was designed and developed by LV and
FM. LV, FS, and AB prepared the first draft of
the manuscript. All authors commented on pre-
vious versions of the manuscript and read and ap-
proved the final manuscript.
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Conflicts of Interest
The authors have no conflicts of interest to
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article.
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WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on ENVIRONMENT and DEVELOPMENT
DOI: 10.37394/232015.2024.20.42
Leonardo Vezzani, Federica Moro,
Francesco Strada, Federico Pieri, Andrea Bottino
E-ISSN: 2224-3496
458
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