The current study evaluated the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) platforms, developed within the scope of the SKILLS Integrated Project, for industrial maintenance and assembly (IMA) tasks training. VR and AR systems are now widely regarded as promising training platforms for complex and highly demanding IMA tasks. However, there is a need to empirically evaluate their efficiency and effectiveness compared to traditional training methods. Forty expert technicians were randomly assigned to four training groups in an electronic actuator assembly task: VR (training with the VR platform twice), Control-VR (watching a filmed demonstration twice), AR (training with the AR platform once), and Control-AR (training with the real actuator and the aid of a filmed demonstration once). A post-training test evaluated performance in the real task. Results demonstrate that, in general, the VR and AR training groups required longer training time compared to the Control-VR and Control-AR groups, respectively. There were fewer unsolved errors in the AR group compared to the Control-AR group, and no significant differences in final performance between the VR and Control-VR groups, probably due to a ceiling effect created by the use of two training trials in the selected task for participants who were expert technicians. The results suggest that use of the AR platform for training IMA tasks should be encouraged and use of the VR platform for that purpose should be further evaluated

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The current work describes design guidelines for the development of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) platforms to train technicians on maintenance and assembly tasks of industrial machineries. The main skill involved in this kind of tasks is the procedural skill. Based on past literature and studies conducted within the SKILLS project, several main design guidelines were formulated. First, observational learning integrated properly within the training protocol increases training efficiency. Second, training protocols combining physical and cognitive fidelity enhances procedural skills acquisition. Third, guidance aids should be provided in a proper and controlled way. And last, enriched information about the task helps trainees to develop a useful mental model of the task. These recommendations were implemented in both VR and AR training platforms.

This paper focuses on the use of virtual reality (VR) systems for teaching industrial assembly tasks and studies the influence of the interaction technology on the learning process. The experiment conducted follows a between-subjects design with 60 participants distributed in five groups. Four groups were trained on the target assembly task with a VR system, but each group used a different interaction technology: mouse-based, Phantom Omni® haptic, and two configurations of the Markerless Motion Capture (Mmocap) system (with 2D or 3D tracking of hands). The fifth group was trained with a video tutorial. A post-training test carried out the day after evaluated performance in the real task. The experiment studies the efficiency and effectiveness of each interaction technology for learning the task, taking in consideration both quantitative measures (such as training time, real task performance, evolution from the virtual task to real one), and qualitative data (user feedback from a questionnaire). Results show that there were no significant differences in the final performance among the five groups. However, users trained under mouse and 2D-tracking Mmocap systems took significantly less training time than the rest of the virtual modalities. This brings out two main outcomes: (1) the perception of collisions using haptics does not increase the learning transfer of procedural tasks demanding low motor skills and (2) Mmocap-based interactions can be valid for training this kind of tasks.