honors
An interdisciplinary team from the “Hybrid Societies” collaborative research center and from the natural, engineering, human and social sciences was honored at the international “IEEE VR” conference in Shanghai for a contribution in the field of “telepresence”.
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Franziska Klimant from Chemnitz University of Technology walks through the interactive VR model of the TU physics building developed by Sascha Feder from the Physics: Structure and Function of Cognitive Systems (SFKS) professorship in the five-sided cave of the “Virtual Reality Center Production Engineering”. To her right is a telepresence robot accompanying her. Photo: TU Chemnitz/Larissa Flade
As part of the “IEEE VR Conference” in Shanghai, one of the most important conferences on virtual reality, an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Humboldt University in Berlin and Chemnitz University of Technology received a “Best Paper Award”. They received the Best Submission award for their paper entitled: “Evaluating the Effects of Virtual Reality Environment Learning on Subsequent Robot Teleoperation in an Unfamiliar Building”.
In the award-winning paper, the researchers describe how virtual reality applications can help with orientation in unfamiliar buildings.
The honorees include Karl Eisenträger, a student at the Humboldt University in Berlin and first author, Prof. Dr. Georg Jahn, holder of the professorship for applied gerontopsychology and cognition, his colleague Judith Haubner, as well as Jennifer Brade, Sven Winkler and Dr. Philipp Klimant from the Professorship of Production Systems and Processes (Head: Prof. Dr. Martin Dix) and Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Einhäuser-Treyer, holder of the Physics of Cognitive Processes professorship, and Prof. Dr. Alexandra Bendixen, Chair of the Structure and Function of Cognitive Systems (SFKS).
Virtual tour in advance helps with later orientation on site
In a joint study, the team examined which sensory impressions are necessary to support spatial orientation in virtual scenarios. 66 test persons in Berlin were to see the interior of the building of the Institute of Physics at Chemnitz University of Technology on the Reichenhainer Straße campus using a classic building plan or meet virtually.
The test subjects then had to solve orientation and navigation tasks from a distance using a telepresence robot (see photo). The scientists found out that preparation in virtual reality can be useful for orientation and navigation in teleoperations when people do not have access to the real environment.
Test persons who had already visited the virtual Institute of Physics before the tour through the building with the telepresence robot found their way around the building significantly faster.
A possible application for such systems could e.g. B. Training for emergency services.
Background: IEEE VR
Die IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces is one of the most important international conferences in the field of virtual reality. Since 1993, the conference has provided an annual interdisciplinary platform for experts from the fields of computer science, psychology, engineering and human-computer interaction to present research results.
This year’s hybrid conference took place in Shanghai, the award-winning lecture was presented online.
Background: Collaborative Research Center “Hybrid Societies”
As part of the Collaborative Research Center “Hybrid Societies” at Chemnitz University of Technology, more than 60 researchers from the eight faculties of the TU are fundamentally investigating how people can coordinate smoothly and safely, for example with autonomous vehicles and robots in public spaces. The SFB has been funded by the German Research Foundation with 11.8 million euros since 2020. Interested parties receive event information and news from the research of the SFB quarterly in the Hybrid-Societies-Newsletter.
publication: K. Eisenträger et al., “Evaluating the Effects of Virtual Reality Environment Learning on Subsequent Robot Teleoperation in an Unfamiliar Building,” in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 29, no. 5, pp. 2220-2229, May
DOI: 10.1109/TVCG.2023.3247052
(Author: Katja Klöden)
Matthias Fejes
05.05.2023