4.7 Article

Design, programming and orchestration of heterogeneous manufacturing systems through VR-powered remote collaboration

Journal

ROBOTICS AND COMPUTER-INTEGRATED MANUFACTURING
Volume 33, Issue -, Pages 68-77

Publisher

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.rcim.2014.08.012

Keywords

Virtual reality/augmented reality; Mixed virtual and physical reality; Remote collaboration; Virtual commissioning; Future internet; Cognitive infocommunications

Funding

  1. Hungarian Government
  2. Research and Technology Innovation Fund
  3. [KTIA_AIKQ_12-1-2013-0037]

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Modern manufacturing systems are often composed of a variety of highly customized units and specifically designed manufacturing cells. Optimization of assembly and training of staff requires a series of demo installations and excessive use of costly operational resources. In some cases, components are located at different sites, making the orchestration of the whole system even more difficult. Virtual Reality (VR) collaboration environments offer a solution by enabling high fidelity testing and training of complex manufacturing systems. On the other hand, such platforms are difficult to implement in an engineering perspective, as they are required to provide reliable, standard interfaces towards both robotic components and human operators. The VirCA (Virtual Collaboration Arena) platform is a software framework that supports various means of collaboration through the use of 3D augmented/virtual reality as a communication medium. VirCA offers functions for the high-level interoperability of heterogeneous components in a wide range of domains, spanning from research & development, through remote education to orchestration and management of industrial processes in manufacturing applications. This paper provides an overview of the industrial requirements behind high-fidelity virtual collaboration and demonstrates how the VirCA platform meets these requirements. Use cases are provided to illustrate the usability of the platform. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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