Method and device for augmenting a person's view of a mining vehicle on a mining worksite in real-time

1. A method for augmenting a person's current view of a mining vehicle on a mining worksite in real-time, the method comprising:

capturing with a camera a stream of pictures of the mining worksite with the camera's field of view corresponding at least partly to the person's field of view,

recognizing at least one mining vehicle in the picture stream by means of image processing,

extracting image data of the mining vehicle from the picture stream,

calculating, based on the image data and on preset vehicle risk zone data, at least one risk zone of the mining vehicle adapted to the person's current view of the mining vehicle, and

visualizing the risk zone on a person's display such that the person's current view of the mining vehicle is overlayed in real-time with a visualization of the risk zone,

wherein the method comprises a predictive component in that a future risk zone is calculated and visualized based on a parameter of the mining vehicle or the person.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein recognizing at least one mining vehicle comprises recognizing an individual mining vehicle and the preset vehicle risk zone data is data specific for the individual mining vehicle.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein calculating a risk zone comprises subdividing the risk zone in subzones of different risk grades, and visualization of a risk zone comprises displaying different subzones with different overlays.

4. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:

coincident calculation and visualization on the person's display of the risk zones of multiple mining vehicles in the person's current view, wherein the visualization of some or all risk zones is activatable and deactivatable by the person,

calculating and visualizing of at least one additional risk zone wherein the additional risk zone is resulting from an activity of the mining vehicle,

additionally visualizing extracted image data of the mining vehicle such that an artificial live view of the mining vehicle is visualized on the display, and

communicating with the mining vehicle using information visualized on the display.

5. A method for augmenting a person's current view of a mining vehicle on a mining worksite in real-time, the method comprising:

capturing with a camera a stream of pictures of the mining worksite with the camera's field of view corresponding at least partly to the person's field of view,

recognizing at least one mining vehicle in the picture stream by means of image processing,

extracting image data of the mining vehicle from the picture stream,

calculating, based on the image data and on preset vehicle risk zone data, at least one risk zone of the mining vehicle adapted to the person's current view of the mining vehicle, and

visualizing the risk zone on a person's display such that the person's current view of the mining vehicle is overlayed in real-time with a visualization of the risk zone,

wherein recognizing at least one mining vehicle comprises recognizing a class of mining vehicle and the preset vehicle risk zone data is class specific data.

6. An augmented reality display device adapted for augmenting a person's current view of a mining vehicle on a mining worksite in real-time, the device comprising:

at least one camera for capturing a stream of pictures, the camera being aligned such that the camera's field of view corresponds at least partly to the person's field of view,

an image recognition and extraction unit that is adapted to recognize a mining vehicle in the picture stream by means of image processing and to extract image data related to the mining vehicle from the picture stream,

a risk zone calculation unit that is adapted to determine, based on the image data and on preset vehicle risk zone data, at least one risk zone of the mining vehicle adapted to the person's current view of the mining vehicle,

a graphic display unit that is adapted to create and visualize a graphics of the risk zone on a display of the device and to overlay the graphics in real time on the person's current view of the mining vehicle,

a detector for determining the position and/or orientation of the device relative to the mining vehicle,

a user interface adapted to enable the person to interact with information, particularly the risk zone, visualized on the display,

an additional camera for capturing a stream of pictures, the additional camera being aligned such that the camera's field of view is substantially different from the person's field of view, and

a wireless communication unit for communication with the mining vehicle.

7. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory machine readable medium having program code which is stored on the non-transitory machine-readable medium, the program code being configured to control and carry out the method according to claim 1 .