journal article·2022-06-20Open access

Smart Factory Using Virtual Reality and Online Multi-User: Towards a Metaverse for Experimental Frameworks

Luis Omar Alpala, Darío J. Quiroga-Parra, Juan Carlos Torres, Diego H. Peluffo-Ordóñez

Applied Sciences· Volume 12· Issue 12

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) has been brought closer to the general public over the past decade as it has become increasingly available for desktop and mobile platforms. As a result, consumer-grade VR may redefine how people learn by creating an engaging “hands-on” training experience. Today, VR applications leverage rich interactivity in a virtual environment without real-world consequences to optimize training programs in companies and educational institutions. Therefore, the main objective of this article was to improve the collaboration and communication practices in 3D virtual worlds with VR and metaverse focused on the educational and productive sector in smart factory. A key premise of our work is that the characteristics of the real environment can be replicated in a virtual world through digital twins, wherein new, configurable, innovative, and valuable ways of working and learning collaboratively can be created using avatar models. To do so, we present a proposal for the development of an experimental framework that constitutes a crucial first step in the process of formalizing collaboration in virtual environments through VR-powered metaverses. The VR system includes functional components, object-oriented configurations, advanced core, interfaces, and an online multi-user system. We present the study of the first application case of the framework with VR in a metaverse, focused on the smart factory, that shows the most relevant technologies of Industry 4.0. Functionality tests were carried out and evaluated with users through usability metrics that showed the satisfactory results of its potential educational and commercial use. Finally, the experimental results show that a commercial software framework for VR games can accelerate the development of experiments in the metaverse to connect users from different parts of the world in real time.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline

Research context

OpenAlex topics: Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts · Digital Transformation in Industry

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

Virtual Reality Laboratory, ETSIIT, Department of Computer Languages and Systems, University of Granada, c/Periodista Manuel Saucedo Aranda, s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain

Logistics and Transportation Engineering Career, Universidad Politécnica Estatal del Carchi, Calle Antisana y Av. Universitaria, Tulcan 040102, Ecuador

Administrative, Economic, and Accounting Sciences, Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia, Cra. 73 #2a-80, Cali 760003, Colombia

Faculty of Engineering, Corporación Universitaria Autónoma de Nariño, Pasto 520001, Colombia

Modeling, Simulation and Data Analysis (MSDA) Research Program, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Ben Guerir 47963, Morocco

Funding

Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia—Cali, Colombia

References (52)

Show source-provided references
1. Studying human behavior with virtual reality: The Unity Experiment Framework10.3758/s13428-019-01242-0 ↗
2. and Kim, Y.G. A Metaverse: Taxonomy, Components, Applications, and Open Challenges10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3140175 ↗
3. Using virtual reality and 3D industrial numerical models for immersive interactive checklists10.1016/j.compind.2013.03.018 ↗
4. He, Z., Rosenberg, K.T., and Perlin, K. (2019, January 4–9). Exploring configuration of mixed reality spaces for communication. Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Glasgow, UK.10.1145/3290607.3312761 ↗
5. Industry 4.0: How it is defined from a sociotechnical perspective and how much sustainability it includes—A literature review10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.120856 ↗
6. Juřík, V., Herman, L., Kubíček, P., Stachoň, Z., and Šašinka, Č. (2016, January 12–19). Cognitive aspects of collaboration in 3D virtual environments. Proceedings of the International Archives of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic.10.5194/isprsarchives-XLI-B2-663-2016 ↗
7. (2022, January 25). Connect 2021: Nuestra Visión del Metaverso. Available online: https://about.fb.com/ltam/news/2021/10/connect-2021-nuestra-vision-del-metaverso/.
8. Carruth, D.W. (2017, January 26–27). Virtual reality for education and workforce training. Proceedings of the 2017 15th International Conference on Emerging eLearning Technologies and Applications (ICETA), Stary Smokovec, Slovakia.10.1109/ICETA.2017.8102472 ↗
9. Opportunities assessment of product development process in Industry 4.010.1016/j.promfg.2017.07.265 ↗
10. The Application Center Industrie 4.0—Industry-driven manufacturing, research and development10.1016/j.procir.2016.11.006 ↗
11. Rupp, M., Schneckenburger, M., Merkel, M., Rainer Börret, R., and Harrison, D. (2021). Industry 4.0: A Technological-Oriented Definition Based on Bibliometric Analysis and Literature Review. J. Open Innov. Technol. Mark. Complex., 7.10.3390/joitmc7010068 ↗
12. Las tecnologías de la información en América Latina, su incidencia en la productividad: Un análisis comparado con países desarrollados10.15446/dyna.v84n200.60632 ↗
13. Industry 4.0: State of the art and future trends10.1080/00207543.2018.1444806 ↗
14. Intelligent Manufacturing in the Context of Industry 4.0: A Review10.1016/J.ENG.2017.05.015 ↗
15. Industry 4.0: A survey on technologies, applications and open research issues
16. Setting speed-limit on Industry 4.0—An outlook of power-mix and grid capacity challenge10.1016/j.procs.2019.09.033 ↗
17. A training system for Industry 4.0 operators in complex assemblies based on virtual reality and process mining10.1016/j.rcim.2019.05.004 ↗
18. Ottogalli, K., Rosquete, D., Amundarain, A., Aguinaga, I., and Borro, D. (2019). Flexible framework to model Industry 4.0 processes for virtual simulators. Appl. Sci., 9.10.3390/app9234983 ↗
19. Realizing virtual reality learning environment for industry 4.010.1016/j.procir.2019.02.025 ↗
20. Smart factory performance and Industry 4.010.1016/j.techfore.2019.119790 ↗
21. Smart factory in Industry 4.010.1002/sres.2704 ↗
22. Past, present, and future barriers to digital transformation in manufacturing: A review10.1016/j.jmsy.2021.03.006 ↗
23. Żywicki, K., Zawadzki, P., and Górski, F. (2017, January 17–18). Virtual reality production training system in the scope of intelligent factory. Proceedings of the International Conference on Intelligent Systems in Production Engineering and Maintenance, Wroclaw, Poland.10.1007/978-3-319-64465-3_43 ↗
24. Wittenberg, C., Bauer, B., and Stache, N. (2019, January 25–29). A smart factory in a laboratory size for developing and testing innovative human-machine interaction concepts. Proceedings of the International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics, Washington, DA, USA.10.1007/978-3-030-19135-1_16 ↗
25. Augmented and virtual reality applications in industrial systems: A qualitative review towards the industry 4.0 era10.1016/j.ifacol.2018.08.388 ↗
26. A systematic review of immersive virtual reality for industrial skills training10.1080/0144929X.2021.1954693 ↗
27. A systematic review of immersive virtual reality applications for higher education: Design elements, lessons learned, and research agenda10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103778 ↗
28. A review of the use of virtual reality head-mounted displays in education and training10.1007/s10639-017-9676-0 ↗
29. Ozcinar, C., and Smolic, A. (June, January 29). Visual attention in omnidirectional video for virtual reality applications. Proceedings of the 2018 Tenth International Conference on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX), Cagliari, Italy.10.1109/QoMEX.2018.8463418 ↗
30. Reflecting on the design process for virtual reality applications10.1080/10447318.2018.1443898 ↗
31. Virtual reality and augmented reality in social learning spaces: A literature review10.1007/s10055-020-00444-8 ↗
32. Using virtual reality to support the product’s maintainability design: Immersive maintainability verification and evaluation system10.1016/j.compind.2018.06.007 ↗
33. Lee, L.H., Braud, T., Zhou, P., Wang, L., Xu, D., Lin, Z., Kumar, A., Bermejo, C., and Hui, P. (2021). All one needs to know about metaverse: A complete survey on technological singularity, virtual ecosystem, and research agenda. arXiv.
34. Ning, H., Wang, H., Lin, Y., Wang, W., Dhelim, S., Farha, F., Ding, J., and Daneshmand, M. (2021). A survey on metaverse: The state-of-the-art, technologies, applications, and challenges. arXiv.
35. Analysis of Metaverse Business Model and Ecosystem
36. Explication and Rational Conceptualization of Metaverse
37. Duan, H., Li, J., Fan, S., Lin, Z., Wu, X., and Cai, W. (2021, January 20–24). Metaverse for social good: A university campus prototype. Proceedings of the 29th ACM International Conference on Multimedia, Virtual Event.10.1145/3474085.3479238 ↗
38. Application of metaverses and the virtual reality in teaching
39. Virtual Experiments in Metaverse and their Applications to Collaborative Projects: The framework and its significance10.1016/j.procs.2020.09.249 ↗
40. The Theoretical Framework for Designing Desktop Virtual Reality-Based Learning Environments
41. Framework of Affordances for Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality10.1080/07421222.2019.1628877 ↗
42. Edge Computing Server Deployment Technique for Cloud VR-based Multi-User Metaverse Content
43. He, Z., Du, R., and Perlin, K. (2020, January 9–13). CollaboVR: A Reconfigurable Framework for Creative Collaboration in Virtual Reality. Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR), Porto de Galinhas, Brazil.10.1109/ISMAR50242.2020.00082 ↗
44. Chen, X., Wang, M., and Wu, Q. (2017, January 11–13). Research and development of virtual reality game based on unreal engine 4. Proceedings of the 2017 4th International Conference on Systems and Informatics (ICSAI), Hangzhou, China.10.1109/ICSAI.2017.8248503 ↗
45. (2022, January 25). Unreal Engine: The Most Powerful Real-Time 3D Creation Tool. Available online: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/.
46. Procesos de desarrollo para videojuegos
47. Gómez Sánchez, M. (2018). Test de usabilidad en entornos de Realidad Virtual. No Solo Usabilidad, 17, Available online: https://www.nosolousabilidad.com/articulos/test_usabilidad_realidad_virtual.htm.
48. Designing collaboration experiences for 3D virtual worlds
49. Lee, H., Woo, D., and Yu, S. (2022). Virtual Reality Metaverse System Supplementing Remote Education Methods: Based on Aircraft Maintenance Simulation. Appl. Sci., 12.10.3390/app12052667 ↗
50. Rebollo, C., Gasch, C., Remolar, I., and Delgado, D. (2021). Learning First Aid with a Video Game. Appl. Sci., 11.10.3390/app112411633 ↗
51. Virtual reality sickness questionnaire (VRSQ): Motion sickness measurement index in a virtual reality environment10.1016/j.apergo.2017.12.016 ↗
52. Methodology for the design and simulation of industrial facilities and production systems based on a modular approach in an “Industry 4.0” context10.15446/dyna.v85n207.68545 ↗