Evaluation of virtual reality technology for control engineering

Abstract

Virtual Reality technology has over recent years become available for commercial use. Where initially it had only been available to research centres and the military, it is now accessible to the industrial and commercial sectors. What this dissertation covers is the suitability of the low cost end of the Virtual Reality hardware for use in Control Engineering. The use of Virtual Reality within Control Engineering could impart significant advantages over traditional control rooms currently in use in factories. The primary one, as rated by most commercial ventures, would be the cost saving of replacing all the physical hardware in a control room with virtual counter-parts in software. This is assuming that the Virtual Reality hardware will itself be of sufficiently low cost. The second is its ability to be used for operator training in instances where factors of safety and economics cannot allow for mistakes to be made on the real plant. A third advantage of a virtual control room, is its portability. As long as the factory can be accessed through some computer network, then the control room can be moved to any desired location. For example a copy of the control room for each factory can be maintained at head office where a chief engineer can occasionally check up on plant performance.