Abstract
The first generation of affordable consumer virtual reality headsets and related peripherals are now available. Question-Answering (QA) systems and speech recognition/synthesis has improved dramatically over the last decade. Virtual assistants, based on speech-based services are growing in popularity and can be used in a range of diverse application areas. This paper explores the practical use of virtual reality, IOT and voice driven virtual assistants in remote laboratories to facilitate visualization of electrical phenomena and to tutor students; guiding them through each stage of an experiment; presenting supplementary teaching resources when requested; accessing, controlling and configuring instrumentation and hardware and providing feedback with summative and formative assessment. The re-purposing of existing teaching material for use in an immersive environment with a virtual assistant is shown and the limitations and opportunities offered by the approach taken and the technologies used are discussed. The process of integrating test instrumentation, the board under test, a switching matrix and additional teaching resources into virtual reality using IOT with the inclusion of virtual assistants is described. Two case studies of practical working examples of remote laboratories in virtual reality with a virtual assistant tutor are demonstrated and the viability and long-term opportunities for the use of virtual reality and virtual assistants in the context discussed.
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Callaghan, M.J. et al. (2019). Voice Driven Virtual Assistant Tutor in Virtual Reality for Electronic Engineering Remote Laboratories. In: Auer, M., Langmann, R. (eds) Smart Industry & Smart Education. REV 2018. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 47. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95678-7_63
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