Assembling virtual fixtures for guidance in training environments (original) (raw)

Design and evaluation of a haptically enable virtual environment for object assembly training

2009 IEEE International Workshop on Haptic Audio visual Environments and Games, 2009

Virtual training systems are attracting paramount attention from the manufacturing industries due to their potential advantages over the conventional training practices. Significant cost savings can be realized due to the shorter times for the development of different training-scenarios as well as reuse of existing designed engineering (math) models. This paper presents a newly developed virtual environment (VE) for training of procedure tasks i.e. object assembly. Unlike existing VE systems, the presented idea tries to imitate real physical training scenarios by providing comprehensive user interaction, constrained within the physical limitations of the real world. These physical constrains are imposed by the haptics devices in the virtual environment. As a result, in contrast to the existing VE systems that are capable of providing knowledge generally about assembly sequences only, the proposed system helps in cognitive learning and procedural skill development due to its high physically interactive nature. In addition a novel evaluation framework has also been proposed to evaluate system efficacy through a large scale of user-testing, which is often been neglected by design experts in the field of VEs. Results confirm the practical significance of evaluating a VE design by involving sample of real and representative users through the effective discovery of critical usability problems and system deficiencies.

Effects of assembling virtual fixtures on learning a navigation task

Studies in health technology and informatics, 2006

An approach to enhance navigation task performance is to integrate sensory guidance (virtual fixtures) into a virtual training system. To evaluate the effects of adding virtual fixtures to skill acquisition, 32 subjects were required to use a PHANToM input device, to transport a virtual object through a computer generated 3-D graphic maze. Subjects practiced navigation under 4 conditions: the maze was augmented with either a graphic fixture (G), attractive force field (F), both graphic and force field (GF), or no (N) virtual fixture. Fifteen practice trials were given before subjects were transferred to a situation with no virtual fixtures. Results showed that the implementation of the force field assisted task performance during practice; however, it failed to show positive transfer effects. In contrast, adding a graphic fixture to the virtual maze helped subjects to define the optimal pathway throughout navigation, which facilitated skill acquisition.

Haptically enable interactive virtual assembly training system development and evaluation

2012

Virtual training systems are attracting paramount attention from the manufacturing industries due to their potential advantages over the conventional training practices. Significant cost savings can be realized due to the shorter times for the development of different training-scenarios as well as reuse of existing designed engineering (math) models. In addition, use of computer based virtual reality (VR) training systems can shorten the time span from computer aided product design to commercial production due to non-reliance on the hardware parts for training. Within the aforementioned conceptual framework, a haptically enabled interactive and immersive virtual reality (HIVEx) system is presented. Unlike existing VR systems, the presented idea tries to imitate real physical training scenarios by providing comprehensive user interaction, constrained within the physical limitations of the real world. These physical constrains are imposed by the haptics devices in the virtual environment. As a result, in contrast to the existing VR systems that are capable of providing knowledge generally about assembly sequences only, the proposed system helps in cognitive learning and procedural skill development as well, due to its high physically interactive nature.

Progressive haptic and visual guidance for training in a virtual dynamic task

2010

This paper presents the design and implementation of a novel progressive haptic guidance scheme and a similar visual guidance scheme for acquisition of a dynamic motor skill. The paper compares the schemes' performance to each other and to practice alone without any form of guidance. The target-hitting task is represented in a visual and haptic virtual environment and implemented in a training protocol that lasts eleven sessions over a two-month period. The progressive guidance controller employs as inputs two expertise-based performance measures, trajectory error and input frequency. The analysis of the experimental results demonstrates that while guidance is active, haptic guidance outperforms both visual guidance and practice alone (no guidance) until late in the protocol when all three groups saturate at the same level of performance. The results fail to show significant differences in training outcomes because the performance of all participants saturates toward the end of the protocol. The key implication of the experimental findings is that visual and haptic guidance presented in a progressive manner have no detrimental effects on performance. Our results confirm that haptic guidance, based on skill component measures, is effective early in the training protocol when participants are only beginning to understand the components of the task but should be progressively removed to avoid possible negative dependence on the guidance.

A haptic-based approach to virtual training for aerospace industry

Journal of Visual Languages & Computing, 2009

In the last years, the industrial world has been increasingly adopting computer-aided solutions for design for maintainability and maintenance training tasks with the goal to reduce development costs and to shorten time, and to improve product and service quality. Computer-based training systems created to simulate machine assembly maintenance are normally operated by means of ordinary human-computer interfaces (keyboard, mouse, etc.), but this usually results in systems that are far from the real procedures, and therefore not effective in terms of training. In this study, we show that a better solution may come from the combination of virtual reality techniques and haptic interaction. To this regard, we present the results of a research aimed at testing and evaluating the effectiveness of the haptic feedback for first-person maintenance tasks targeted to the aerospace industry. The proposed system implements an interaction environment in which each of the main maintenance activities can be simulated by the trainee exploiting a hand-based commercial haptic device, operated by means of specific haptic-rendering techniques to provide realistic feedbacks during manipulation. A usability study is included to help assessing the potential of this approach.

PROSSEIA-VR: training in the virtual environments

2001

9 Introduction The Virtual Reality (VR) field can provide a wide variety of industrial applications. We can find several examples in the automobile industry, where VR is used for tasks like design, wind tunnel simulators, assemble/disassemble, etc. However, all these applications are designed to be used by VR experts, or well trained personnel. This happens because the VR devices and the VR interaction metaphors are not yet well developed to fulfil the needs of an inexperienced user, like robustness, failure recovery, easiness of use. All these aspects have to be resolved before an inexperienced user can effectively use such a system. In the last two years, CCG has been involved in an industrial project aiming to solve, at least partially, this problem, targeting the training on wire twist assembly for the automobile industry.

Motor Skill Learning with Force Feedbackin Mixed Reality

An experimental ,study of interactions in real and mixed ,reality learning and control environments ,will be described. The experiments ,aim at more ,insight into the difference between three interaction modes in handling automation systems: interaction with real components, mixed real-virtual handling with visual feedback only and with visual and force feedback. A simple, low cost, and internet based force feedback device will be presented, being a further implementation of the Hyper-Bonds concept, a unified concept to describe complex effort/flow driven automation,systems distributed over real and virtual worlds. This work ,is a step

Using VR to improve design of assembly tasks and to increase efficiency in conducting the tasks

2018

In this paper we discuss how theories of vision, touch, sound, and learning behavior can form a basis for the development of a testbed through which real-life task performance can be compared with task performance in a Virtual Reality (VR) environment. By taking a multisensory approach, it will be possible to simulate the functionalities of a real training setting in a VR environment. Approaching this problem from a theoretical perspective, we will view it from a new angle and discuss whether we can enhance and nuance feedback in the virtual experience through the use of ambient media like sound, scent, heat, and wind. Sound may hold a great potential here. For visual perception, it is not only crucial that we can see relationships but that we are also able to search for patterns that we recognize. If an object is taken outside its context, its meaning can easily shift. To see is to search for patterns, but vision is also dependent on our experience of other senses. We can imagine how a given surface might feel by looking at a representation of the object, and this is because of previous tactile experiences with similar objects. From a technical perspective, integrating sound in a virtual environment is a straightforward process. Research shows that the process of learning a series of physical actions can be enhanced when it occurs in parallel with verbal or written information. In the literature, this phenomenon is described in terms of enactment or subjectperformed tasks. Based on theories regarding vision, touch, sound and learning behavior, we suggest the design of a testbed that can be used in a pilot study aimed at increasing knowledge on how VR and AR can support learning in an assembly or installation context in order to produce guidelines for such an environment.

Haptically enabled interactive virtual reality prototype for general assembly

2008 World Automation Congress, 2008

Desktop computers based virtual training systems are attracting paramount attention from manufacturing industries due to their potential advantages over the conventional training practices. Significant cost savings can be realized due to the shorter training-scenarios development times and reuse of existing engineering models. In addition, by using computer based virtual reality (VR) training systems, the time span from the product design to commercial production can be shortened due to non-reliance on hardware parts. Within the aforementioned conceptual framework, a haptically enabled interactive and immersive virtual reality (HIIVR) system is presented. Unlike existing VR systems, the presented idea tries to imitate real physical training scenarios by providing comprehensive user interaction, constrained within the physical limitations of the real world imposed by the haptics devices within the virtual environment. As a result, in contrast to the existing VR systems, capable of pr...

The Effect of Haptic Guides on Human Performance in Virtual Environments

Computer Graphics Theory and Applications, 2009

In order to make the virtual environments(VE's) more realistic and to increase human performance, the inclusion of haptic modality becomes more important. In this paper we present two new haptic guides. The haptic guides are fundamentally aimed to assist users for object selection in VE's. We divide the virtual environment into three zones. In the first zone the user can freely move and don't use any sort of guides. In the 2nd zone, user is given visual guidance and the 3rd zone contains haptic guides along with visual guides. As the paper presents two different models of the haptic guides, one for free and multidirectional selection and the second for precise and single direction selection. We not only study the effect of these guides on human task performance in the VE but also investigate a comparison of the two haptic models.