Preparing for Industry 4.0 – Collaborative Virtual Learning Environments in Engineering Education

Abstract

After having finished studies, graduates need to apply their knowledge to a new environment. In order to professionally prepare students for new situations, virtual reality (VR) simulators can be utilized. During our research, such a simulator is applied in order to enable the visit of remote laboratories, which are designed through advanced computer graphics in order to create simulated representations of real world environments. That way, it is our aim to facilitate the access to practical engineering laboratories. Our goal is to enable a secure visit of elusive or dangerous places for students of technical studies. The first step towards the virtualization of engineering environments, e.g. a nuclear power plant, consists in the development of demonstrators. In the present paper, we describe the elaboration of an industry relevant demonstrator for the advanced teaching of engineering students. Within our approach, we use a virtual reality simulator that is called the "Virtual Theatre". © 2014 Springer International Publishing.