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Presence Examples From Information Society Technologies (IST) 23 Aug 2004 News & Features Virtual reality training sparks welding success Partners in the WAVE project developed an award-winning virtual welding environment to improve training optimising gesture learning and the concentration required by welders. The CS-WAVE system simulates welding situations through a wide range of exercises and offers simultaneous control of the training process for several trainees at once. CS-WAVE is trademarked and marketed in France and will soon be marketed across Europe and worldwide. The project is the winner of Laval Virtual Award 2004 for Education and Science, granted at the International Conference on Virtual Reality in Laval, France. At the award ceremony, Pierre Boissier, Director General of the French AFPA (Association pour la Formation Professionnelle des Adultes), commented: “The [CS-]WAVE platform is a major innovation in the education field. Thanks to its interactivity, students quickly learn welding techniques and instructors have a record of their work. This vastly increases the effectiveness of the training.” The system architecture is based on three modules. The Central Server module manages communications between trainer and trainee, and stores user profile information together with a description of the exercises and results data. The Trainer module, or Control Centre, allows users to add, remove or update data, manage exercises and enables real-time follow-up of trainees’ progress. It also allows the trainee to visualise and analyse results. The third module, the Virtual Welding Workbench, is CS-WAVE’s primary learning tool. It is a motorised workbench featuring a wide screen display and equipped with real welding tools. (So far, CS-WAVE integrates a torch and an electrode handle). The wide screen display can switch between horizontal and vertical positions to provide a wide range of exercise situations. Users are given a complete analysis of their results, which allows them to learn from their mistakes. Each workbench is equipped with a network plug, which allows the workbench to communicate with an existing CS-WAVE server. In this way, workbenches are automatically brought up to date when teaching processes evolve. It also sends real-time information regarding the trainee’s progress to the Central Server. CS-WAVE is a success story developed within the IST programme’s EUTIST-AMI project, an initiative that brought together SMEs with a view to improve competitiveness and production processes by using leading edge technologies. The consortium of 71 companies ran 17 application projects testing agent and middleware technologies in real industrial environments. (Middleware is a layer of software between the network and the applications.) Agents (software processes) and middleware offer major benefits to companies as they are available at low cost, are flexible in the application to several industrial sectors, and useful to optimise complex industrial processes and procedures. Contact: Source: Based on information from WAVE |