London North Eastern Railway Drive Railroad Training Efficiency Using VR and SenseGlove Nova

SenseGlove Nova is used for assembling a train ramp in Virtual Reality: Haptic force feedback gloves improve VR simulation and allow trainees to physically feel the virtual tools and parts of the train.



DELFT, THE NETHERLANDS – June 23, 2022 — SenseGlove, a leading developer of force feedback gloves for VR, today unveiled results of a SenseGlove case study conducted in cooperation with London North Eastern Railway, a British train operating company. SenseGlove Nova is a haptic force-feedback glove designed specifically for professional VR training purposes.

London North Eastern Railway (LNER) implemented SenseGlove Nova for the railroad VR training in assembling a train ramp in Virtual Reality. They used haptic force feedback gloves to improve the realism of the interactions in a virtual training and train the employees more efficiently by using haptic gloves instead of just using controllers. 90% of participants who completed the haptics training indicated that they felt ready to assemble a ramp in real life and did not need any further training. Assembly trainees who donned SenseGlove Nova haptic force feedback gloves in a virtual environment were able to physically feel the virtual parts of the train, explore the details of the ramp, and interact with required tools in a natural way. The feeling of realistic physical interaction is possible due to the combination of SenseGlove’s force feedback, vibrotactile feedback and motion capture features.

The features play an especially important role for assembly training: force-feedback gloves allow the wearer to feel the parts of equipment that need to be assembled and also ascertain the difference between their sizes and density of each part. SenseGlove Nova's vibrotactile feedback enables trainees to feel every impact when they connect or insert the parts, as well as the vibration when they work with a drilling machine, for example. Combined with motion capture, the features allow the trainees to interact in a similar way as they would in a physical training.