Virtual Training for a Manual Assembly Task

Abstract

This paper describes an experiment conducted to investigate the benefits of force feedback for virtual reality training of a real task. Three groups of subjects received different levels of training before completing a manual task, the construction of a LEGO(TM) biplane model. One group trained on a Virtual Building Block (VBB) simulation, which emulated the real task in a virtual environment, including haptic feedback. A second group was also trained on the VBB system, but without the force feedback. The last group received no virtual reality training. Completion times were compared for these different groups in building the actual biplane model in the real world ANOVA analysis showed a significant change in performance due to training level.