Optimizing the Design Review Process for Cyber-Physical Systems using Virtual Reality
Stefan Adwernat, Mario Wolf, Detlef Gerhard
Abstract
The radical shift from traditional products towards intelligent, connected cyber-physical Systems (CPS) leads to a growing accumulation of physical products with large amounts of directly related digital contents. A core challenge of research associated with Industrie 4.0 and CPS is to bridge the gap between the physical and digital world. Virtual Reality (VR) may contribute to this endeavor, since this technology is inherently suitable to visualize digital contents and allows intuitive user interactions within a highly immersive virtual environment. This contribution addresses the design review process for CPS by introducing a VR-driven concept, taking CPS characteristics into account, like the use data of (previous) product instances in the field as an additional source of information. The concept was prototypically implemented utilizing modern VR devices to validate the overall-viability of the proposed concept and to improve on typical weak points of existing VR approaches. A non-formal usability study under laboratory conditions indicated the necessity for an initial training to familiarize with the hardware, the design review specific tools in VR and the adapted workflows of the proposed concept.