A Virtual-Reality Enhanced Integrated Process Design Environment (VR-IPDE)

This paper describes the architecture and concept of operation of a Virtual Reality-Enhanced Integrated Process Design Environment (VR-IPDE), a novel architecture for effectively applying Virtual Reality (VR) technology in the context of manufacturing system design. Virtual Prototyping (VP) and Simulation Based Design (SBD) have been used with increasing success in the application of Virtual Reality (VR) for the design and evaluation of complex systems on a computer. VP and SBD eliminate the need for building expensive ‘real’ prototypes and allow for design and analysis, using computer based techniques, at comparable levels of fidelity. In spite of their early promise, VP/SBD’s integration with other manufacturing systems design methods and tools has been hindered by several technical and pragmatic barriers. These barriers include: 1. The semantic gap between different ‘role types’ (domain experts, systems engineers, and developers) involved in the VP-enabled manufacturing system design life cycle. The result of this gap is a loss in communication and, consequently, significant inefficiencies. 2. The diversity of methods, tools, and technologies that are available inhibits (a) re-use of data/knowledge across multiple technologies, (b) inter-operation of applications, and (c) consistency maintenance across applications. 3. The absence of structured, standard methods that describe/prescribe how to effectively combine the techniques and tools from VP/SBD with other manufacturing systems design methods and tools. The VR-IPDE was designed to address these problems. VR-IPDE allows systems designers to (1) define and characterize systems design goals and performance metrics, (2) develop conceptual designs of the manufacturing system processes and products, (3) analyze manufacturing processes using a novel combination of qualitative, quantitative and (VR-based) immersive analysis techniques, and (4) integrate manufacturing system process models and product models. VR-IPDE facilitates the integration of process and product models with VR-based immersive process analysis techniques. Key VR-IPDE benefits include (a) reduced time and cost for designing manufacturing systems, (b) reduced time and cost for maintaining manufacturing systems, (c) increased mission readiness through increased system availability (through faster maintenance), and (d) increased life cycle re-use of system behavior knowledge. Important applications of VR-IPDE include (a) Simulation Based Design and Virtual Prototyping, (b) Augmented Reality Operations and Maintenance, and (c) VR-enhanced Training.