Virtual Training Environment Research Articles

Applications of Virtual Environments in Human Factors Research and Practice

Virtual reality, augmented reality, and other forms of virtual environments have the potential to dramatically change how individuals work, learn, and interact with each other. A key objective of human factors research and practice is to determine how these environments should be designed to maximize performance efficiency, ensure health and safety, and circumvent potential human virtual environment interaction problems. This session will demonstrate some of the distinct and diverse uses of virtual reality, mixed reality, and virtual environments in an alternative format. The session will begin with each demonstrator providing a brief overview of their virtual environment and describing how it has been used to address a particular problem or research need. Following the description portion of the session, all demonstrations will be set-up around the room, and session attendees will be encouraged to directly interact with the environment and ask demonstrators questions about their research and inquire about the effectiveness of using their virtual environment for research, training, and evaluation purposes. The overall objective of this alternative session is to provoke ideas among the attendees for how virtual reality, mixed reality, and virtual environments can help address their research, training, education or business needs.

A validation study of a virtual‐based haptic system for endoscopic sinus surgery training

The development of endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS) training simulators for clinical environment applications has reduced the existing shortcomings in conventional teaching methods, creating a standard environment for trainers and trainees in a more accurate and repeatable fashion. In this research, the validation study of an ESS training simulator has been addressed. It is important to consider components that guide trainees to improve their hand movements control in the orbital floor removal in an ESS operation. Therefore, we defined three tasks to perform: pre-experiment learning, training, and evaluation. In these tasks, the critical regions introduced in the virtual training environment are forbidden to be touched. Recruiting 20 participants, divided into two groups, we investigated the performance metrics: quality (the percentage of the realism for the generated force for orbital floor removal and the usefulness of the proposed training system for the surgical educational curricula.), efficiency (time, path length), and safety (touching the goal and forbidden wall). All recruited participants answered a post-evaluation questionnaire regarding their perceptions of training system realism, potential educational benefits, and practiced skills. We investigate the differences between groups' performance metrics by utilizing the analysis of variance-Kruskal-Wallis test. Acquired results indicate that training before the actual process of the surgery has a significant effect on the accuracy and validity of the process for surgeons. Utilizing a standardized environment, trainers and trainees are able to carry out a process with regular features. In addition to traditional education methods, trainees can learn the risk of surgical operations. The training simulators can, also, provide a standard method for assessing the skills of surgical and medical students.

Evaluating VERT as a radiotherapy plan evaluation tool: comparison with treatment planning software

AbstractIntroduction:The virtual environment for radiotherapy training (VERT) helps students to gain technical skills and understanding of 3D anatomy and dosimetry. It has potential as a tool for treatment plan evaluation, although little formal evidence currently supports this.Aim:This paper reports findings from a plan evaluation workshop that facilitated comparison of VERT plan evaluation tools with those provided by conventional treatment planning software (TPS).Method:Students on a pre-registration Post-Graduate Diploma in Radiotherapy worked in small groups evaluating lung plans using both VERT and Eclipse TPS tools. All students were invited to provide ratings concerning how helpful each modality was for a range of evaluation parameters and preferences for use.Results:Most students (11 out of 14) found the session useful and expressed a desire to use VERT in future plan evaluation. The TPS was perceived to be more helpful with constraint-based evaluation while VERT was more helpful with evaluating plans for clinical set-up and delivery (p < 0·001).Conclusion:Student therapeutic radiographers found VERT to be helpful as a plan evaluation tool alongside standard TPS tools, in particular for clinical set-up and delivery aspects of planning. Future work is ongoing to identify the specific impact of VERT as a plan evaluation tool for both students and qualified planners.

Embodiment in Virtual Environments: The Role of Working Memory in Experiencing Presence as Revealed via Eye Tracking

Working memory capacity (WMC) is critical in maintaining goal-directed behavior and in inhibiting task irrelevant or conflicting thoughts. Using eye tracking data, the current study developed measures to investigate users' experiences of presence. We investigated the cognitive processing mechanisms of feelings of presence by examining how users of varying WMC coordinate their attention between their actions in using external controllers for computer mediated environments, and the actions produced by their avatars in virtual environments. To rule out the possibility of participants acting out of social pressure, a well-practiced everyday task with minimal social component was used. Participants performed vegetable cutting tasks in a desktop virtual environment by controlling an avatar's arm, with no pressure (Experiment 1) versus while pressured to improve the evenness of their cuts (Experiment 2). The results showed that high WMC participants experienced higher degrees of presence, as indicated by the attention allocated to the avatar's hand and to task planning. Under performance pressure, low WMC participants became more immersed in the tasks. The mechanisms of adaptive and personalized presence in virtual world simulation training environments are discussed in light of our findings on the effects of pressure and individual differences of WMC in experiencing presence.

A novel backstepping adaptive impedance control for an upper limb rehabilitation robot

Stroke contributes to hemiplegia, which severely reduces people's ability to perform activities of daily living. Due to the insufficiency of medical resources, there is an urgent need for home-based rehabilitation robot. In this paper, we design a home-based upper limb rehabilitation robot, based on the principle that three axes intersect at one point. A three-dimensional force sensor is equipped at the end of the manipulator to measure the interaction forces between the affected upper limb and the robot during rehabilitation training. The virtual rehabilitation training environment is designed to improve the enthusiasm of patients. A backstepping adaptive fuzzy based impedance control method is proposed for the home-based upper limb rehabilitation robot to prevent secondary injury of the affected limb. The adaptive law is introduced, and the backstepping adaptive fuzzy based impedance controller is proved in details. Experiments results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control method.

Being prepared for emergencies: a virtual environment experiment on the retention and maintenance of egress skills

The retention of safety-critical egress skills is an essential part of emergency preparedness on offshore petroleum platforms. Virtual environment (VE) training has been shown to be an effective method for teaching basic onboard familiarization and offshore emergency evacuation procedures. This technology has the potential to train crews before they are deployed offshore. This paper investigates the long-term retention and maintenance of emergency egress competence obtained using a virtual offshore platform. In particular, the research aimed to answer two questions: (1) what egress skills can be remembered after a period of 6 months? and (2) how effective is a VE-based retraining program at maintaining egress skills? A two-phased experiment was designed to first teach basic egress skills and subsequently assess skill retention after a 6- to 9-month period. The first phase of the experiment used a simulation-based mastery learning (SBML) pedagogical approach to teach naïve subjects the necessary spatial and procedural skills to evacuate safely. In the second phase of the experiment, the same 36 participants were tested after the retention interval on their ability to respond to a series of egress test scenarios. Participants who had trouble remembering the egress procedures were provided retraining on deficient skills. The results of the experiment indicate that emergency egress skills (both spatial and procedural knowledge) are susceptible to skill decay. This paper will highlight the skills that were most susceptible to skill fade after a period of 6 to 9 months and discuss the efficacy of the retraining participants received to return to competence.

Innovation in education: computer simulation in physics training

Interest in the application of Computer Simulation within Medical training continues to grow and the use of the VERT (Virtual Environment for Radiotherapy Training) system in radiotherapy training equally so. Herein we explore the use of the VERT system to understand, illustrate and experience the process required to calibrate an ion chamber and use it to obtain an accurate output measurement on a high energy Linac. The VERT system provides a detailed and accurate simulation of conventional Linacs and has a variety of physics activities that mirror the tasks medical physicists are required to become familiar with during their training. One such activity has been implemented to follow the steps defined by the IAEA TRS398 protocol. All activities on the virtual Linac can be undertaken with deliberate errors having been introduced to explore their consequences. The system was used to make the necessary ‘measurements’ to determine the various calibration factors required to correct the raw electrometer reading for ion recombination, polarity, temperature/pressure. Likewise, the Quality Index of the Linac’s 6MV beam was determined to enable the correction of the Absorbed Dose to Water factor measured in the reference Quality. The VERT system provides a simulation environment for training and enhancing the trainees understanding of radiotherapy concepts and practices. Dosimetry practice can be experienced and explored in the classroom during standard working hours rather than waiting until a clinical Linac is available. Random and systematic errors can be introduced, however, the virtual machine can be used without risk of leaving it in a mis-calibrated or unsafe condition.

Personalization of learning activities within a virtual environment for training based on fuzzy logic theory

Personalization of learning activities within a virtual environment for training based on fuzzy logic theory

The use of virtual reality environments for medical training

The use of virtual reality environments for medical training

Innovation in the Spirit of Design Thinking

AbstractWe define an innovation process that was designed for the provision of analytic services and software products. Our iterative process, which is based on design thinking, captures the need to both create value and accelerate value creation. The four steps in our iterative process include illuminate, ideate, create, and evaluate. We present a case study for which we used this process in the successful creation of a conversational non‐player character within a virtual training environment for the Army.

Developing and evaluating virtual anatomy resources for teaching allied health disciplines

Allied health professionals require an understanding of anatomy for purposes such as planning radiotherapy, or treating muscle imbalance. In practice, they will rarely see the structure they are treating, but seeing it during their education is invaluable. To reveal deep structures in the human body, neighbouring structures are unavoidably removed as a donated human body is dissected. Academic and clinical staff approached the challenge for students’ understanding of the male reproductive and urinary system, which is indeed disrupted by dissection. An existing radiotherapy planning instrument Virtual Environment for Radiotherapy Training was used to create videos of real patients’ internal structures. Structures difficult to see in dissection, models and images were transformed from magnetic resonance and computerised tomography scans into videos that appeared three-dimensional, for use by students learning anatomy. Qualitative evaluation of these anatomy videos suggested that they can be accessed at students’ convenience and can be customised with captions, pauses or quizzes. Quantitative evaluation suggested that offering assessment-related incentives may not result in all students choosing to access the videos, but that those who did performed better on both labelling and short answer explanations of related content on immediate and short-term testing.

Digital factory – virtual reality environments for industrial training and maintenance

ABSTRACT This study evaluates the use of virtual reality (VR) platforms, which is an integrated part of the digital factory for an industrial training and maintenance system. The digital factory-based VR platform provides an intuitive and immersive human–computer interface, which can be an efficient tool for industrial training and maintenance services. The outcomes from this study suggested that use of the VR platform for training and maintenance of complex industrial tasks should be encouraged and use of the VR platform for that purpose should be further evaluated. This paper highlighted the generic concept of the application of virtual reality technique within the digital factory to industrial maintenance and to build a low-cost VR application for a training and maintenance system. An application case on virtual reality technique in a power plant operations and maintenance is demonstrated within the scope of this research. Overall research implications on virtual reality concept in industrial applications are concluded with future research directions.

Technology of Effective Polytechnical Training at the Basis of Creation of Ontologies

The problem of growth of volume of engineering knowledge and their difficulties is considered when developing and using high technology productions and high technologies in regions. Growth of requirements to competences of engineering personnel and need of structurization and systematization of knowledge result in need of application of ontologic approach to polytechnic education. The expediency of forming of ontologies of two levels is shown: models of subject domain for understanding of essence of the engineering sphere and the structured set of elements of applied knowledge (ontology of the second order), are formalized the maintenance of simple and expanded ontologies. The formal structure of the virtual training environments for engineering education is defined, examples of the developed virtual environments for all levels of training are provided, the efficiency of their practical application is shown.

Simulation Environment for Development and Testing of Autonomous Learning Agents

Training an autonomous agent in the real world is a cumbersome process. The hardware modules required are expensive and they need routine maintenance. The data collection process is time-consuming and it is difficult to collect data in different conditions and scenarios. Moreover, testing these agents in the real world requires many permissions and could be potentially hazardous. This paper introduces a virtual environment for training and testing of autonomous driving agents. The environment has features like customizable car parameters and sensors, different terrains, customizable data extraction parameters, and simulated pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The environment can connect to any learning agent via a communication interface. Therefore, the environment introduced in this paper expedites the training and testing process and the learned knowledge representations can be scaled to the real world.

Nonnative implicit phonetic training in multiple reverberant environments

Speech intelligibility is adversely affected by reverberation, particularly when listening to a foreign language. However, little is known about how phonetic learning is affected by room acoustics. This study investigated how room reverberation impacts the acquisition of novel phonetic categories during implicit training in virtual environments. Listeners were trained to distinguish a difficult nonnative dental-retroflex contrast in phonemes presented either in a fixed room (anechoic or reverberant) or in multiple anechoic and reverberant spaces typical of everyday listening. Training employed a videogame in which phonetic stimuli were paired with rewards delivered upon successful task performance, in accordance with the task-irrelevant perceptual learning paradigm. Before and after training, participants were tested using familiar and unfamiliar speech tokens, speakers, and rooms. Implicit training performed in multiple rooms induced learning, while training in a single environment did not. The multiple-room training improvement generalized to untrained rooms and tokens, but not to untrained voices. These results show that, following implicit training, nonnative listeners can overcome the detrimental effects of reverberation and that exposure to sounds in multiple reverberant environments during training enhances implicit phonetic learning rather than disrupting it.

Design of a bi-manual haptic interface for skill acquisition in surface mount device soldering

PurposeOffering unskilled people training in engineering and vocational skills helps to decrease unemployment rate. The purpose of this paper is to augment actual hands-on conventional vocational training methods with virtual haptic simulations as part of computer-based vocational education and training.Design/methodology/approachThis paper discusses the design of a bi-manual virtual multi-modal training interface for learning basic skills in surface mount device hand soldering. This research aims to analyze human hand dexterity of novices and experts at micro level skill knowledge capture by simulating and tracking the users’ actions in the manual soldering process through a multi-modal user interface.FindingsHaptic feedback can enhance the experience of a virtual training environment for the end user and can provide a supplementary modality for imparting tangible principles to increase effectiveness. This will improve the teaching and learning of engineering and vocational skills with touch-based haptics technology, targeted toward teachers and students of various disciplines in engineering. Compared with the traditional training methods for learning soldering skills, the proposed method shows more efficiency in faster skill acquisition and skill learning.Originality/valueIn this study, the authors proposed a novel bi-manual virtual training simulator model for teaching soldering skills for surface mount technology and inspection. This research aims to investigate the acquisition of soldering skills through virtual environment, with and without haptic feedback. This acts as a basic-level training simulator that provides introductory training in soldering skills and can help initially unskilled people find educational opportunities and job offers in the electronics industry.

Adapting myoelectric control in real-time using a virtual environment

BackgroundPattern recognition technology allows for more intuitive control of myoelectric prostheses. However, the need to collect electromyographic data to initially train the pattern recognition system, and to re-train it during prosthesis use, adds complexity that can make using such a system difficult. Although experienced clinicians may be able to guide users to ensure successful data collection methods, they may not always be available when a user needs to (re)train their device.MethodsHere we present an engaging and interactive virtual reality environment for optimal training of a myoelectric controller. Using this tool, we evaluated the importance of training a classifier actively (i.e., moving the residual limb during data collection) compared to passively (i.e., maintaining the limb in a single, neutral orientation), and whether computational adaptation through serious gaming can improve performance.ResultsWe found that actively trained classifiers performed significantly better than passively trained classifiers for non-amputees (P < 0.05). Furthermore, collecting data passively with minimal instruction, paired with computational adaptation in a virtual environment, significantly improved real-time performance of myoelectric controllers.ConclusionThese results further support previous work which suggested active movements during data collection can improve pattern recognition systems. Furthermore, adaptation within a virtual guided serious game environment can improve real-time performance of myoelectric controllers.

An Approach of Virtual Reality Environment for Technicians Training in Upstream Sector

Abstract Upstream Oil & Gas production is conducted by companies who identify, extract, or produce raw materials. This industrial sector has grown year by year in the automation field, trying to improve their processes and productivity, and at the same time trying to ensure the safety of their workers, machinery and company. This is has become increasingly relevant to the Oil & Gas industry because low oil prices coupled with aging assets means profitability can only be achieved by making operations more productive. To achieve these goals, it is necessary to periodically train instrumentation technicians and field operators; however, it must be taken noted that most of the industrial equipment is really expensive. Due to this it has been necessary to use tools such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), which optimize and reduce both the time and the cost of training. This research proposes the development of a virtual training system for the commissioning, calibration and mounting HART transmitters in dynamic and dangerous environments for the human being such us Oil & Gas process facilities.

Differences of attitude concerning ict of proffesional training in presential and virtual environments (Plan @vanza

En Extremadura, existen dos modelos para el desarrollo de la Formacion Profesional, uno presencial y otro virtual denominado Plan @vanza. Nuestro objetivo ha sido contrastar si existen diferencias significativas entre las modalidades y los participantes implicados en dichos modelos de formacion, mediante una investigacion cuantitativa, mediante un analisis descriptivo e inferencial a traves de un cuestionario facilitado al alumnado y profesorado de ciclos de Grado Superior en Extremadura. Los resultados muestran que si se incrementa el uso de las TIC, se potencia su uso en el alumnado y existe mayor disponibilidad TIC por el alumnado de modalidad presencial.

Effects of Real Instrumental Training in Virtual Reality Environment for Stroke Patients: an RCT

Effects of Real Instrumental Training in Virtual Reality Environment for Stroke Patients: an RCT