Augmented and virtual reality evolution and future tendency

Augmented reality and virtual reality technologies are increasing in popularity. Augmented reality has thrived to date mainly on mobile applications, with games like Pokémon Go or the new Google Maps utility as some of its ambassadors. On the other hand, virtual reality has been popularized mainly thanks to the videogame industry and cheaper devices. However, what was initially a failure in the industrial field is resurfacing in recent years thanks to the technological improvements in devices and processing hardware. In this work, an in-depth study of the different fields in which augmented and virtual reality have been used has been carried out. This study focuses on conducting a thorough scoping review focused on these new technologies, where the evolution of each of them during the last years in the most important categories and in the countries most involved in these technologies will be analyzed. Finally, we will analyze the future trend of these technologies and the areas in which it is necessary to investigate to further integrate these technologies into society.Universidad de Sevilla, Spain Telefonica Chair “Intelligence in Networks

Virtual monitors vs. physical monitors: an empirical comparison for productivity work

Virtual monitors can display information through a head-worn display when a physical monitor is unavailable or provides insufficient space. Low resolution and restricted field of view are common issues of these displays. Such issues reduce readability and peripheral vision, leading to increased head movement when we increase the display size. This work evaluates the performance and user experience of a virtual monitor setup that combines software designed to minimize graphical transformations and a high-resolution virtual reality head-worn display. Participants performed productivity work across three approaches: Workstation, which is often used at office locations and consists of three side-by-side physical monitors; Laptop, which is often used in mobile locations and consists of a single physical monitor expanded with multiple desktops; and Virtual, our prototype with three side-by-side virtual monitors. Results show that participants deemed Virtual faster, easier to use, and more intuitive than Laptop, evidencing the advantages of head and eye glances over full content switches. They also confirm the existence of a gap between Workstation and Virtual, as Workstation achieved the highest user experience. We conclude with design guidelines obtained from the lessons learned in this study

LoCoMoTe – a framework for classification of natural locomotion in VR by task, technique and modality

Virtual reality (VR) research has provided overviews of locomotion techniques, how they work, their strengths and overall user experience. Considerable research has investigated new methodologies, particularly machine learning to develop redirection algorithms. To best support the development of redirection algorithms through machine learning, we must understand how best to replicate human navigation and behaviour in VR, which can be supported by the accumulation of results produced through live-user experiments. However, it can be difficult to identify, select and compare relevant research without a pre-existing framework in an ever-growing research field. Therefore, this work aimed to facilitate the ongoing structuring and comparison of the VR-based natural walking literature by providing a standardised framework for researchers to utilise. We applied thematic analysis to study methodology descriptions from 140 VR-based papers that contained live-user experiments. From this analysis, we developed the LoCoMoTe framework with three themes: navigational decisions, technique implementation, and modalities. The LoCoMoTe framework provides a standardised approach to structuring and comparing experimental conditions. The framework should be continually updated to categorise and systematise knowledge and aid in identifying research gaps and discussions

Virtual reality for safe testing and development in collaborative robotics: challenges and perspectives

Collaborative robots (cobots) could help humans in tasks that are mundane, dangerous or where direct human contact carries risk. Yet, the collaboration between humans and robots is severely limited by the aspects of the safety and comfort of human operators. In this paper, we outline the use of extended reality (XR) as a way to test and develop collaboration with robots. We focus on virtual reality (VR) in simulating collaboration scenarios and the use of cobot digital twins. This is specifically useful in situations that are difficult or even impossible to safely test in real life, such as dangerous scenarios. We describe using XR simulations as a means to evaluate collaboration with robots without putting humans at harm. We show how an XR setting enables combining human behavioral data, subjective self-reports, and biosignals signifying human comfort, stress and cognitive load during collaboration. Several works demonstrate XR can be used to train human operators and provide them with augmented reality (AR) interfaces to enhance their performance with robots. We also provide a first attempt at what could become the basis for a human–robot collaboration testing framework, specifically for designing and testing factors affecting human–robot collaboration. The use of XR has the potential to change the way we design and test cobots, and train cobot operators, in a range of applications: from industry, through healthcare, to space operations.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Preliminary Work on a Virtual Reality Interface for the Guidance of Underwater Robots

The need for intervention in underwater environments has increased in recent years but there is still a long way to go before AUVs (Autonomous Underwater Vehicleswill be able to cope with really challenging missions. Nowadays, the solution adopted is mainly based on remote operated vehicle (ROV) technology. These ROVs are controlled from support vessels by using unnecessarily complex human–robot interfaces (HRI). Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the complexity of these systems to make them easier to use and to reduce the stress on the operator. In this paper, and as part of the TWIN roBOTs for the cooperative underwater intervention missions (TWINBOT) project, we present an HRI (Human-Robot Interface) module which includes virtual reality (VR) technology. In fact, this contribution is an improvement on a preliminary study in this field also carried out, by our laboratory. Hence, having made a concerted effort to improve usability, the HRI system designed for robot control tasks presented in this paper is substantially easier to use. In summary, reliability and feasibility of this HRI module have been demonstrated thanks to the usability tests, which include a very complete pilot study, and guarantee much more friendly and intuitive properties in the final HRI-developed module presented here

Social Virtual Reality: Neurodivergence and Inclusivity in the Metaverse

Whereas traditional teaching environments encourage lively and engaged interaction and reward extrovert qualities, introverts, and others with symptoms that make social engagement difficult, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), are often disadvantaged. This population is often more engaged in quieter, low-key learning environments and often does not speak up and answer questions in traditional lecture-style classes. These individuals are often passed over in school and later in their careers for not speaking up and are assumed to not be as competent as their gregarious and outgoing colleagues. With the rise of the metaverse and democratization of virtual reality (VR) technology, post-secondary education is especially poised to capitalize on the immersive learning environments social VR provides and prepare students for the future of work, where virtual collaboration will be key. This study seeks to reconsider the role of VR and the metaverse for introverts and those with ASD. The metaverse has the potential to continue the social and workplace changes already accelerated by the pandemic and open new avenues for communication and collaboration for a more inclusive audience and tomorrow

Design and evaluation of a choreography-based virtual reality authoring tool for experiential learning in industrial training

The use of virtual reality (VR) for industrial training helps minimize risks and costs by allowing more frequent and varied use of experiential learning activities, leading to active and improved learning. However, creating VR training experiences is costly and time-consuming, requiring software development experts. Additionally, current authoring tools lack integration with existing data and are desktop-oriented, which detach the pedagogic process of creating the immersive experience from experiencing it in a situated context. In this article, we present a novel interactive approach for immersive authoring of VR-based experiential training by the trainers themselves, from inside the virtual environment and without the support of development experts. The design includes identifying interactable elements, such as 3-D models, equipment, tools, settings, and environment. The trainer also specifies by demonstration the actions to be performed by trainees, as a virtual choreography. During course execution, trainees’ activities are also registered as virtual choreographies and matched to those specified by the trainer. Thus, trainer and trainee are culturally situated within their area semantics and social discourse, rather than adopting concepts of the VR system for the learning content. We conducted a usability case study with professionals from an international wind energy company, using detailed models of wind turbines and real-world procedures. Trainers set up a training course using the immersive authoring tool, and trainees executed the course. The learning experience and usability were analyzed, and the training was certified by comparing real-world task completion between a user who had undergone virtual training and a user who did not.Manuscript received 25 June 2021; revised 30 November 2021 and 18 February 2022; accepted 2 March 2022. Date of publication 7 March 2022; date of current version 21 October 2022. This work was supported in part by the ERDF - European Regional Development Fund through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation - COMPETE 2020 under the Portugal 2020 Partnership Agreement, in part by the Portuguese National Innovation Agency (ANI) under Project POCI-01-0247-FEDER038524, and in part by Portuguese funding agency, FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, under Project UIDB/50014/2020. An earlier version of this paper was presented in part at the 2021 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D UserInterfaces[DOI: 10.1109/VRW52623.2021.00199].(Corresponding author: Fernando Cassola.) Fernando Cassola, Daniel Mendes, and Ant onio Coelho are with the INESC TEC, and Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, 4099-002 Porto, Portugal (e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]). Manuel Pinto and Hugo Paredes are with the INESC TEC and University of Tras-os-Montes e Alto Douro, 5000-801 Vila Real, Portugal (e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]). Leonel Morgado is with the INESC TEC and Universidade Aberta, 1250-100 Lisboa, Portugal (e-mail: [email protected]). Sara Costa, Luıs Anjos, David Marques, Filipe Rosa, Ana Maia, and Helga Tavares are with the Vestas Wind Systems, 2670-327 Loures, Portugal (email: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]). Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TLT.2022.3157065info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

An extended AI-experience : Industry 5.0 in creative product innovation

Creativity plays a significant role in competitive product ideation. With the increasing emergence of Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, the link between such technologies and product ideation is explored in this research to assist and augment creative scenarios in the engineering field. A bibliographic analysis is performed to review relevant fields and their relationships. This is followed by a review of current challenges in group ideation and state-of-the-art technologies with the aim of addressing them in this study. This knowledge is applied to the transformation of current ideation scenarios into a virtual environment using AI. The aim is to augment designers’ creative experiences, a core value of Industry 5.0 that focuses on human-centricity, social and ecological benefits. For the first time, this research reclaims brainstorming as a challenging and inspiring activity where participants are fully engaged through a combination of AI and VR technologies. This activity is enhanced through three key areas: facilitation, stimulation, and immersion. These areas are integrated through intelligent team moderation, enhanced communication techniques, and access to multi-sensory stimuli during the collaborative creative process, therefore providing a platform for future research into Industry 5.0 and smart product development