Developing virtual environments for industrial training

Synthesizing Personalized Construction Safety Training Scenarios for VR Training

Construction industry has the largest number of preventable fatal injuries, providing effective safety training practices can play a significant role in reducing the number of fatalities. Building on recent advancements in virtual reality-based training, we devised a novel approach to synthesize construction safety training scenarios to train users on how to proficiently inspect the potential hazards on construction sites in virtual reality. Given the training specifications such as individual training preferences and target training time, we synthesize personalized VR training scenarios through an optimization approach. We validated our approach by conducting user studies where users went through our personalized guidance VR training, free exploration VR training, or slides training. Results suggest that personalized guidance VR training approach can more effectively improve users' construction hazard inspection skills.

Augmenting Virtual Reality Terrain Display with Smart Shoe Physical Rendering: A Pilot Study

Haptic terrain rendering is limited in existing Virtual Reality (VR) systems. This article describes integration of the Smart Shoe (SS) for physical terrain display with the TreadPort VR system. The SS renders both gross sloped terrain and subtle sensations of stepping on small objects or uneven surfaces. The TreadPort projects terrain on the floor and the SS renders terrain that the user steps upon via motion tracking. The research is motivated towards eventually providing gait training for people with Parkinson's Disease (PD), hence this work presents a pilot study evaluating haptic terrain rendering with healthy elderly and PD participants wearing the SS within the TreadPort. Uneven cobblestone surfaces are rendered by the SS as the participant steps on their graphical representation in VR. While posthoc analysis shows the study is underpowered, kinematic and spatiotemporal results derived from motion capture data demonstrates kinesthetic response (e.g., increased maximum ankle angle and minimum toe clearance, reduced minimum ankle angle and knee angle) provided by the SS. Questionnaire data shows increased VR realism and difficulty walking on cobbled terrain using SS rendering. Thus, results indicate that the integrated haptic system demonstrates promise in potential gait training for PD in future work.

Virtual Planning, Control, and Machining for a Modular-Based Automated Factory Operation in an Augmented Reality Environment

This study presents a modular-based implementation of augmented reality to provide an immersive experience in learning or teaching the planning phase, control system, and machining parameters of a fully automated work cell. The architecture of the system consists of three code modules that can operate independently or combined to create a complete system that is able to guide engineers from the layout planning phase to the prototyping of the final product. The layout planning module determines the best possible arrangement in a layout for the placement of various machines, in this case a conveyor belt for transportation, a robot arm for pick-and-place operations, and a computer numerical control milling machine to generate the final prototype. The robotic arm module simulates the pick-and-place operation offline from the conveyor belt to a computer numerical control (CNC) machine utilising collision detection and inverse kinematics. Finally, the CNC module performs virtual machining based on the Uniform Space Decomposition method and axis aligned bounding box collision detection. The conducted case study revealed that given the situation, a semi-circle shaped arrangement is desirable, whereas the pick-and-place system and the final generated G-code produced the highest deviation of 3.83 mm and 5.8 mm respectively.

Understanding the complex needs of automotive training at final assembly lines

Automobile final assembly operators must be highly skilled to succeed in a low automation environment where multiple variants must be assembled in quick succession. This paper presents formal user studies conducted at OPEL and VOLVO Group to identify assembly training needs and a subset of requirements; and to explore potential features of a hypothetical game-based virtual training system. Stakeholder analysis, timeline analysis, link analysis, Hierarchical Task Analysis and thematic content analysis were used to analyse the results of interviews with various stakeholders (17 and 28 participants at OPEL and VOLVO, respectively). The results show that there is a strong case for the implementation of virtual training for assembly tasks. However, it was also revealed that stakeholders would prefer to use a virtual training to complement, rather than replace, training on pre-series vehicles.

Research on Material Removal Algorithm Model in Virtual Milling Process Based on Adaptive Dynamic Quadtrees Algorithm

The realistic dynamic image of virtual milling process is important in the field of virtual manufacturing technology. However, it is difficult to realize virtual 3-D workpiece model removing process. Material removal algorithm model based on an adaptive dynamic quadtrees algorithm is proposed in this paper. Based on mathematical model of virtual material removal, the 3D model of virtual CNC milling process was developed. The real-time simulation of material removal process was realized in the virtual reality environment.

Development of a Virtual Controller Integrating Virtual and Physical CNC

This paper describes the development of a virtual CNC controller. Controller is the major driver for a CNC machine. Similarly, virtual controller is the key driving component for a virtual CNC, which is a three-dimensional digitized physical CNC. A virtual CNC can exist in every PC serving as the complementary safer counterpart in lecturing and learning the hand on operation of expensive machinery such as five-axis milling machine, high speed CNC and mill-turn because the virtual CNC will not break. Virtual reality environment provided by EON studio software has been adopted in establishing the interactivity of a virtual CNC based on the geometry model constructed in off-the-shelf CAD software. Visual Basic was used in implementing the graphical user interface to operate the virtual CNC through the developed virtual controller. The virtual controller is in charge of (1) parsing user’s NC codes, (2) simulating the tool path of the parsed NC codes, and (3)driving the virtual CNC according to the tool path. The developed virtual CNC controller has been successfully applied in implementing virtual CNCs based on two physical three-axis CNC machines and has also been demonstrated in an international exposition successfully. The virtual controller can enable the virtual CNC in facilitating lecturing, tutoring, self-learning, and reducing the chances of accidental breakdown of precious CNC equipment.