Small Grants for Exploratory Research: Virtual Design Laboratory

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This research is concurrent in the development of a Virtual Design Laboratory (VDL): a system which uses virtual reality technology to design and assemble prototypes of mechatronic systems rapidly and naturally. For this research, virtual reality can be thought of as the computer-generated simulation of real experience which immerses the computer user in any system of location which the computer can model. The research VDL system offers three advantages over current approaches to design: (1) the VDL saves the designer a great deal of time in the design process; (2) the VDL allows the designer to design in a more natural and less mathematical way without discounting the importance of mathematics to good design work; and (3) the VDL lets the designer experiment with a very wide variety of parts, and, in fact, potentially experiment with every possible part option. To develop a new machine using the VDL system, the designer wears a helmet and two powered master gloves. The helmet has a computer-generated virtual reality display mounted in a type of faceshield to produce the virtual reality environment in front of the designer's eyes. The gloves have sensors in them to let the designer "feel" and manipulate various machine parts in the virtual reality environment. The designer installs in the VDL the virtual reality software developed as a catalog of parts by parts manufacturers. In the resulting virtual reality display, the designer can see various computer-generated shelves, each shelf containing only one type of machine parts. The designer manipulates the master gloves to have the computer-generated slave gloves within the VDL choose from the shelves several parts to try in the particular machine design and also to build the machine, both within the VDL. These parts are not physically present. They exist in the VDL with all of their engineering properties having been modeled mathematically in the virtual reality environment to replicate the behavior of the actual part. The objective of this research project is to determine the ground rules for the operations of the VDL through the design, construction, and control of a simple experimental design workstation. The knowledge obtained from this preliminary research will serve as a basis for the design and construction of the next- generation design workstations.