Entering the Augmented Era: Immersive and Interactive Virtual Reality for Battery Education and Research**

Abstract

We present a series of innovative serious games we develop since four years using Virtual Reality (VR) technology to teach battery concepts at the University (from undergraduate to doctorate levels) and also to the general public in the context of science festivals and other events. These serious games allow interacting with battery materials, electrodes and cells in an immersive way. They allow experiencing impossible situations in real life, such as building with hands battery active material crystal structures at the nanometer scale, flying inside battery composite electrodes to calculate their geometrical tortuosities at the micrometer scale, experiencing the electrochemical behavior of different battery types by driving an electric vehicle and interacting with a virtual smart electrical grid impacted by 3D‐printed devices operated from the real world. Such serious games embed mathematical models with different levels of complexity representing the physical processes at different scales. We describe the technical characteristics of our VR serious games and their teaching goals, and we provide some discussion about their impact on the motivation, engagement and learning following four years of experimentation with them. Finally, we discuss why our VR serious games have also the potential to pave the way towards an augmented era in the battery field by supporting the R&D activities carried out by scientists and engineers.

From Battery Manufacturing to Smart Grids: Towards a Metaverse for the Energy Sciences**

“…[11,12] Mixed Reality is another emerging technology that usually refers to an AR experience where the user can interact with the projected holograms by receiving feedback from them (Figure 1b). [13] In a couple of previous publications we have introduced for the first time a series of VR serious (or educative) games we have developed for education and popularization of electrochemical energy storage (batteries) science [14,15] and for which we won one of the French Prizes for Pedagogical Innovation in 2019. [16] These VR games include one allowing to build crystallographic structures by applying symmetry operations just with the hands, another game allowing to calculate the geometrical tortuosity of electrodes by flying through them, another one allowing to explore materials in 3D and other two games allowing to drive and Electric Vehicle (EV) powered by three types of battery technologies (Lithium Ion, Lithium Sulfur and Lithium Air) in a virtual environment.…”

“…In one of these publications, we have also presented the prototype of a new type of educative game, called Smart Grid MR implicating a player driving a batterypowered EV in the VR environment in interaction with players acting on 3D-printed power generators (one wind generator, one solar panel and one water funnel). [14] MR in the name of this educative game stands for Mixed Reality but in the sense of putting the virtual environment in interaction with objects of the real world. Indeed, in this educative game, blowing a wind generator and illuminating a solar panel generates virtual power which is stored in a Redox Flow Battery (RFB) in the virtual environment giving immediately power to stations where the EV can be recharged.…”

“…They also increase significantly the engagement and motivation of the students. [14,15] Because of this, we have used them in numerous science festivals as they constitute very efficient tools to popularize complex battery science.…”

“…For the LSB case, the virtual battery cell is constituted of a negative electrode made of Lithium and a positive electrode made of a carbon/sulfur composite. [14,18,19] Here the driver can choose the sulfur loading. For the LOB case, the virtual battery cell is constituted of a negative electrode made of Lithium and a carbon-based positive electrode.…”

Digitalization of Battery Manufacturing: Current Status, Challenges, and Opportunities

“…AR and VR can be considered among the key technologies to create a detailed visualization of the assets. [ 213 ] In the battery field, VR and MR have been recently developed by Franco et al [ 214 ] as powerful tools for teaching battery concepts and for analyzing results such as the 3D morphology of battery electrodes arising from tomography characterizations or physics‐based simulations of their manufacturing process. VR offers fully immersive and interactive virtual environments powered with models of the physical world.…”