VR software under international evaluation

Project IRMA is bringing generic Virtual Reality to industrial manufacturing by building, integrating, demonstrating and evaluating seven very different "application demonstrators".

Delmia, a Dassault Systemes company announces that its software is being used in Project IRMA.

This international Project is bringing generic Virtual Reality (VR) to industrial manufacturing by building, integrating, demonstrating and evaluating seven very different "application demonstrators".

Peter Modern, of lead partner, BNFL, heads the development teams.

"Project IRMA is an Intelligent Manufacturing Systems approved, inter-regional VR project, with partners from the European Union, newly associated states of Eastern Europe, Switzerland and Japan", he said.

"Although the different demonstrators reflect diverse aspects of manufacturing and deploy a range of software simulation, all of them aim to support immersive virtual environments with real-time, two way, interaction.

Within Project IRMA in Europe, much of the expertise in Delmia software is provided by Delfoi, the company's Scandinavian partner.

Kimmo Karppi, a product development manager of Delfoi, explained: "We want to make VR tools a usable part of manufacturing design.

Currently, only big car manufacturers and some research organizations are benefiting from VR.

We are developing common platforms that will bring the benefits of immersive VR to a wider audience.

Already, our findings show that an immersed engineer will notice failings in a design more quickly than one who is not.

We are linking standard Delmia IGRIP and QUEST software with the Delfoi Integrator.

This integration platform delivers data between Delmia and the IRMA hub allowing the user to explore the resulting virtual environment through both 3D vision and touch.

In Japan, an R and D team from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is using Delmia software to create a VR cost evaluation system for a shipyard.

It is recognized that the right assembly sequence is crucial for minimizing ship building costs.

Three prototype systems have been developed under the aegis of Project IRMA.

The first is a work strategy evaluation system, comparing the pros and cons of a deck-based strategy with a shell-based one.

It became apparent in VR that the deck-based strategy was the superior method, because it required less upward welding.

The second prototype was the creation of an automatic digital mock-up system using existing CAD.

In the final prototype, the various activities of workers welding a seam were defined, modeled and measured.

In England, Project IRMA has developed an industrial control and monitoring module for BNFL.

A simple, schematic fuel manufacturing plant simulation has been modeled in Delmia's QUEST and linked to a fuel handling and assembly machine simulated in Delmia's IGRIP.

Modern commented: "Like the Japanese, we have created three scenarios.

In the first, the operator has to run, stop, reset and restart a plant in a virtual environment.

This scenario has exciting implications for training, maintenance and commissioning.

In the second scenario, a control systems engineer checks the specifications for a yet to be built facility against the virtual model of that facility.

The third scenario uses OPC (Object Linking and Embedding for Process Control) to link VR objects to real ones, so that the latter are controlled by the former.

In Italy, IGRIP and QUEST has been used to model a Zanussi refrigerator motor stator production line and its machinery.

Zanussi has identical plants all over the world, creating a huge multinational training problem.

The scenarios ask a plant supervisor or a maintenance operator to deal with machine breakdown on the production line in a virtual environment.

Initial findings suggest that VR creates a superb visual interactive learning environment.

Modern concluded: "The Japanese Project IRMA demonstrator is almost complete and will be ready for evaluation in late 2003.

The Zanussi and BNFL demonstrators are at the fine tuning stage and will be fully functional this summer.

By October, we expect to be ready to show some of the demonstrators to the European Commission.

All of the application demonstrators will be demonstrated by the end of the Project in February 2004" Other application modules within Project IRMA include: a freeform design application which aims to use VR technologies to enable more intuitive working methods in product design; modeling earthquakes using VR for the mathematical simulation and visualization of built structures in simulated earthquake conditions and an analysis of the life of power plant components using VR modeling, simulation, prediction and visualization.

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