Development of Haptic Device for Advanced Technical Skills in the Immersive Virtual Environment

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The environment in which Japanese industry has achieved great respect is changing tremendously due to the globalization of economics, where Asian countries are undergoing economic and technical development as well as benefiting from the advances in information technology. For example, in the design of custom-made casting product, a designer whom lacking of casting knowledge may not be able to produce a good design. In order to obtain a good design and manufacturing result, it is necessary to equip the designer and manufacturer with a support system related to casting design or so called, knowledge transfer and creation system. This paper proposes a new virtual reality based knowledge acquisition and job training system for casting design, which is composed of the explicit and tacit knowledge transfer system using synchronized multimedia and the knowledge internalization system using portable virtual environment. In our proposed system, the education content is displayed in the immersiv … More e virtual environment, where by a trainee may experience himself in the virtual site operations. Provided that the trainee has gained explicit and tacit knowledge of casting through the multimedia-based knowledge transfer system, the immersive virtual environment catalyzes the internalization of knowledge and also enable the trainee to gain tacit knowledge before undergoing on the job training at real operation site. The advantage of our system is that it provides the user an opportunity to visually and haptically experience the foundry workflow in a virtually-real manner. By combining the usages of our system and OJT, training program is expected to become a highly efficient and effective futuristic means of human resources development of engineers and technicians. When using the "Portable immersive Virtual Environment System", the user enters a "3D Visualized System". By wearing 3D stereoscopic glasses (eye-gear) the user can see a stereoscopic 3D image of the workflow, in which even the shape and form of a product can be experienced and "felt" by using the haptic system as shown in Fig.10. Simply put, this robot can be used as a system to support the internalization process of learning which is the Phase 4 of the knowledge conversion process defined by the SECI Model. There are many advantages in using this system for in-house education and training purpose. Notable advantages are : (1)The worker can virtually experience the foundry workflow prior to actually performing the works at the worksite in the foundry factory. (2)Learn about the work procedures beforehand. (3)Fully learn about the risks and danger throughout the work process. (4)Train beginner/intermediate level workers that haven't reached veteran level yet, so they can smoothly perform their tasks at the worksite. Less