Mobile augmented reality survey: a bottom-up approach

TL;DR

This survey provides a comprehensive overview of Mobile Augmented Reality, covering system components, enabling technologies, applications, and future challenges, highlighting the unique aspects of mobile AR compared to traditional AR.

Contribution

It is the first dedicated survey on Mobile Augmented Reality, organized with a bottom-up approach covering hardware, software, technologies, applications, and future challenges.

Findings

Overview of current hardware and software for MAR

Survey of technologies improving performance and energy efficiency

Identification of key challenges and future research directions

Abstract

Augmented Reality (AR) is becoming mobile. Mobile devices have many constraints but also rich new features that traditional desktop computers do not have. There are several survey papers on AR, but none is dedicated to Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR). Our work serves the purpose of closing this gap. The contents are organized with a bottom-up approach. We first present the state-of-the-art in system components including hardware platforms, software frameworks and display devices, follows with enabling technologies such as tracking and data management. We then survey the latest technologies and methods to improve run-time performance and energy efficiency for practical implementation. On top of these, we further introduce the application fields and several typical MAR applications. Finally we conclude the survey with several challenge problems, which are under exploration and require great research efforts in the future.