Wearable Augmented Reality: Research Trends and Future Directions from Three Major Venues

Wearable Augmented Reality (AR) has attracted considerable attention in recent years, as evidenced by the growing number of research publications and industry investments. With swift advancements and a multitude of interdisciplinary research areas within wearable AR, a comprehensive review is crucial for integrating the current state of the field. In this paper, we present a review of 389 research papers on wearable AR, published between 2018 and 2022 in three major venues: ISMAR, TVCG, and CHI. Drawing inspiration from previous works by Zhou et al. and Kim et al., which summarized AR research at ISMAR over the past two decades (1998-2017), we categorize the papers into different topics and identify prevailing trends. One notable finding is that wearable AR research is increasingly geared towards enabling broader consumer adoption. From our analysis, we highlight key observations related to potential future research areas essential for capitalizing on this trend and achieving widespread adoption. These include addressing challenges in Display, Tracking, Interaction, and Applications, and exploring emerging frontiers in Ethics, Accessibility, Avatar and Embodiment, and Intelligent Virtual Agents.