INTERACT

Virtual reality (VR) falls short for high-quality training

Practical training requires unexperienced students to operate expensive and possibly dangerous equipment under the constant supervision of an expert trainer. VR could potentially offer much safer and cost-effective solutions for practical training.

Current state-of-the-art VR systems, however, do not yet allow lifelike interactions among multiple users. Thus, they cannot support full collaborative virtual learning. The current challenges are:

• The requirement to use wired head-mounted VR headsets, each connected to a workstation.
• The need for a separate physical space per user, inhibiting natural movement.
• High latencies and desynchronization, leading to cybersickness.
• Unintuitive handheld controllers.

Designing a new wireless platform for multi-user VR training

The partners in the INTERACT project aim to create a solution that overcomes these barriers. They envisage three important innovations:

• A high-rate, high-reliability, low-latency (HRLLC) wireless network based on millimeter wave technology, connecting VR users to the edge cloud.
• An edge cloud VR training platform that maps real to virtual movements and actions, while maintaining 20ms end-to-end latency and synchronization to avoid cybersickness.
• A user-driven perception-based evaluation method for training, assessed with two use cases.

“INTERACT will design the technology to enable multi-user VR applications. This will form the basis for a next generation of practical training applications that are safe, efficient, and scalable.”