Synchronisation Between Real and Virtual-World Devices in a VR-IoT Environment

Abstract

Virtual Reality (VR) can be used for many applications in diverse fields such as engineering, gaming, healthcare, education, etc. Internet of Things (IoT) devices, including CCTV monitoring cameras and smart watches, support diverse services including providing sensor data, intelligence in appliances and multimedia. This paper proposes and describes VRITESS, a novel VR-IoT environment synchronisation scheme which facilitates a seamless user experience for IoT devices through use of VR, and synchronised representation of IoT devices in the virtual world. Certain IoT devices, which are located in extreme environments or are not straightforward in terms of operation for many users, can be manipulated in a simpler way in a virtual environment. A synchronisation mechanism keeps the real devices up-to-date, according to actions and events that happened in the virtual world and vice-versa: actions applied on the real devices are transferred to the virtual world. The proposed solution is tested in a real-life testbed developed in the Performance Engineering Laboratory at Dublin City University, Ireland, with the Oculus Rift and several IoT devices.