Usability analysis of virtual-reality-enabled digital twin for the inspection of sewage pumping stations

Abstract

The use of Digital Twin (DT) for asset management has been considered for a while. While significant scientific and development work has been done on the technical feasibility of DT-based inspection of assets, very little attention has been paid to the expectations of inspectors from such systems and how these systems are actually appreciated by the end-users. In other words, from a practical standpoint, there is very little insight into the usability aspect of DT and how data is best presented to the end user. To address these limitations, this research aims to investigate the usability of a VR-enabled DT platform for the inspection of a sewage pumping station. A prototype was developed and a case study was performed to validate the framework from the usability perspective. Based on the results from the validation, an increase in the efficiency, comprehensibility, and usability of the inspection practices was observed. This attests to the great potential of the proposed framework for improving infrastructure inspections.