Affiliation:
1. University of Alicante: Universitat d'Alacant
Abstract
Abstract
Robotics applications are becoming nowadays increasingly important in people’s daily lives. However, the process of learning and training in robotics is not always easy. In fact, in most cases, proper training is linked to direct interaction with these devices. This is usually not possible for the vast majority of people, as they may not have access to a robot in their teaching/learning institutions or companies. Nevertheless, thanks to the emergence of different technologies such as Virtual Reality it is possible to do physical tasks in a virtual environment that were considered unimaginable just one decade before. Therefore, this project aims to make the most of both technologies, creating an alternative way of interacting with robots to understand their behaviour, while flattening the robotics learning curve. To this end, a framework that allows the simulation and control of various robots in Virtual Reality has been developed and qualitatively assessed with an user satisfaction study.
Publisher
Research Square Platform LLC
Reference13 articles.
1. Batu Akan and Afshin Ameri and Baran C ür ükl ü and Lars Asplund (2011) Intuitive industrial robot programming through incremental multimodal language and augmented reality. 3934-3939, Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 10504729, 9781612843865, 10.1109/ICRA.2011.5979887, Developing easy to use, intuitive interfaces is crucial to introduce robotic automation to many small medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Due to their continuously changing product lines, reprogramming costs exceed installation costs by a large margin. In addition, traditional programming methods for industrial robots is too complex for an inexperienced robot programmer, thus external assistance is often needed. In this paper a new incremental multimodal language, which uses augmented reality (AR) environment, is presented. The proposed language architecture makes it possible to manipulate, pick or place the objects in the scene. This approach shifts the focus of industrial robot programming from coordinate based programming paradigm, to object based programming scheme. This makes it possible for non-experts to program the robot in an intuitive way, without going through rigorous training in robot programming. © 2011 IEEE.
2. Gabriele Bolano and Arne Roennau and Ruediger Dillmann and Albert Groz (2020) Virtual Reality for Offline Programming of Robotic Applications with Online Teaching Methods. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 625-630, 6, 2020 17th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots, UR 2020, 9781728157153, 10.1109/UR49135.2020.9144806, Robotic systems are complex and commonly require experts to program the motions and interactions between all the different components. Operators with programming skills are usually needed to make the robot perform a new task or even to apply small changes in its current behavior. For this reason many tools have been developed to ease the programming of robotic systems. Online programming methods rely on the use of the robot in order to move it to the desired configurations. On the other hand, simulation-based methods enable the offline teaching of the needed program without involving the actual hardware setup. Virtual Reality (VR) allows the user to program a robot safely and effortlessly, without the need to move the real manipulator. However, online programming methods are needed for on-site adjustments, but a common interface between these two methods is usually not available. In this work we propose a VR-based framework for programming robotic tasks. The system architecture deployed allows the integration of the defined programs into existing tools for online teaching and execution on the real hardware. The proposed virtual environment enables the intuitive definition of the entire task workflow, without the need to involve the real setup. The bilateral communication between this component and the robotic hardware allows the user to introduce changes in the virtual environment, as well into the real system. In this way, they can both be updated with the latest changes and used in a interchangeable way, exploiting the advantages of both methods in a flexible manner.
3. Athanasios Christopoulos and Marc Conrad and Mitul Shukla (2018) Increasing student engagement through virtual interactions: How?. Virtual Reality 22: 353-369 https://doi.org/10.1007/S10055-017-0330-3/TABLES/21, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10055-017-0330-3, Springer London, 11, Architectures for educational technology systems,Collaborative learning,Improving classroom teaching,Interactive learning environments,Virtual reality, 4, 14349957, Our ongoing research is focusing on identifying and taxonomising the elements and the factors that affect learner engagement with virtual worlds when hybrid virtual learning models are used. Our main hypothesis links learner engagement with interactions, both in the virtual world and in the physical classroom. In order to examine this subject, there is an elaboration on and consideration of aspects such as the learners ’ prior experiences in the use of virtual worlds, their preconceptions about using them as a learning tool and the impact that the instructional designers ’ choices have on enhancing the opportunities for interactions. In this paper, we examine the impact that the orientation process has on university students who study computer science and have almost no experience in the use of virtual worlds. Our findings suggest that the orientation process contributed positively to students ’ smooth induction and that resulted in having meaningful and engaging interactions. Furthermore, students ’ simultaneous coexistence in both environments eliminated the drawbacks of each educational approach and broadened the network of interactions.
4. Shirine El Zaatari and Mohamed Marei and Weidong Li and Zahid Usman (2019) Cobot programming for collaborative industrial tasks: An overview. Robotics and Autonomous Systems 116: 162-180 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2019.03.003, Cobot,Human-awareness,Human –robot collaboration,Intuitive programming, June, 09218890, Collaborative robots (cobots) have been increasingly adopted in industries to facilitate human –robot collaboration. Despite this, it is challenging to program cobots for collaborative industrial tasks as the programming has two distinct elements that are difficult to implement: (1) an intuitive element to ensure that the operations of a cobot can be composed or altered dynamically by an operator, and (2) a human-aware element to support cobots in producing flexible and adaptive behaviours dependent on human partners. In this area, some research works have been carried out recently, but there is a lack of a systematic summary on the subject. In this paper, an overview of collaborative industrial scenarios and programming requirements for cobots to implement effective collaboration is given. Then, detailed reviews on cobot programming, which are categorised into communication, optimisation, and learning, are conducted. Additionally, a significant gap between cobot programming implemented in industry and in research is identified, and research that works towards bridging this gap is pinpointed. Finally, the future directions of cobots for industrial collaborative scenarios are outlined, including potential points of extension and improvement.
5. Naoures Ghrairi and S ègla Kpodjedo and Amine Barrak and F ábio Petrillo and Foutse Khomh (2018) The State of practice on Virtual Reality (VR) applications: An exploratory study on github and stack overflow. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 356-366, 8, Empirical study,Software quality,State of practice,Virtual Reality, Proceedings - 2018 IEEE 18th International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability, and Security, QRS 2018, 9781538677575, 10.1109/QRS.2018.00048, Virtual Reality (VR) is a computer technology that holds the promise of revolutionizing the way we live. The release in 2016 of new-generation headsets from Facebook-owned Oculus and HTC has renewed the interest in that technology. Thousands of VR applications have been developed over the past years, but most software developers lack formal training on this technology. In this paper, we propose descriptive information on the state of practice of VR applications' development to understand the level of maturity of this new technology from the perspective of Software Engineering (SE). To do so, we focused on the analysis of 320 VR open source projects from Github to determine which are the most popular languages and engines used in VR projects, and evaluate the quality of the projects from a software metric perspective. To get further insights on VR development, we also manually analyzed nearly 300 questions from Stack Overflow. Our results show that (1) VR projects on GitHub are currently mostly small to medium projects, and (2) the most popular languages are JavaScript and C#. Unity is the most used game engine during VR development and the most discussed topic on Stack Overflow. Overall, our exploratory study is one of the very first of its kind for VR projects and provides material that is hopefully a starting point for further research on challenges and opportunities for VR software development.