Session: CIE-31-02 VARE User Experience (UX) and Human-Machine Interaction

Paper Number: 188404

188404 - Mixed-Reality Testing Environment for Human-Machine Symbiosis: Controlling the VR Environment in Real Time Through Coupling With Vicon and Industrial Robots 

The pressure to shorten product development cycles is leading to an increased use of virtual prototyping. At the same time, Industry 5.0 takes a human-centered approach, with humans and machines working together as adaptive partners. However, existing virtual prototyping methods often do not enable consistent physical interaction with real objects in space because virtual models and physical systems are not precisely aligned.

This article examines how a VR environment can be set up in which the technical system under investigation matches the real end effector of an industrial robot in space. The aim is to enable users to reach out and physically touch the real end effector in the VR environment using a virtual handheld tool. An additional challenge is taking the anthropometry of users into account alongside the robot coordinates. To this end, the VR headset is equipped with markers from a Vicon tracking system, enabling the user's position to be integrated into the virtual environment. A Unity-based VR environment processes the position data of the industrial robot and the tracking data of the Vicon system with markers. Through the spatial registration of the robot's tracking system's and VR environment's coordinate systems, the pose of the robot's end effector is transferred to the virtual handheld tool in real time. This approach enables the rapid adjustment of system parameters without the need for physical prototypes, allowing for the immersive evaluation of human-machine interaction in the early stages of product development.

Presenting Author: Simon Saurbier Institute of Product Engineering, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Karlsruhe

Presenting Author Biography: Research Associate

Team Manager
Research Group Human-Machine Systems

Head of the Human-Machine Symbiosis Laboratory

Research focuses on the human-machine interface, specifically the analysis of the vibrational characteristics of the human hand-arm system under dynamic interaction forces and their representation in a physical, dynamic, and adjustable hand-arm model

Co-Chair of the AHFE Conference 2025