Star Truck Rentals Chooses XRMentor™ for Technician Training

Star Truck Rentals is making a significant investment in workforce development by selecting Design Interactive’s XRMentor™ to train technicians. The company will employ a state-of-the-art augmented related solution by Design Interactive, an Orlando, Florida-based human factors engineering firm, whose clients include the U.S. military, the U.S. Department of Transportation and Fortune 500 corporations.

“Star Truck Rentals is proud to put our workforce first and thrilled to offer cutting-edge training to our associates,” stated Shane Rugg, Star Truck Rentals Training Coordinator. “We have been looking at augmented and virtual reality training for a while now. We are excited to start using XRMentor™ because it will allow us to reach a large number of technicians at all our locations quicker and deliver effective training more consistently.”

Star Truck Rentals is principally engaged in the long-term lease, short-term rental and fleet maintenance of light and heavy-duty, over-the-road trucks. Their customers include several Fortune 500 companies and Star Truck Rentals is the largest full-service truck rental and leasing company based in Michigan.

While Star Truck Rentals is always looking to improve their training offering, the COVID-19 pandemic did impact how they were able to deliver training with less opportunity to provide in-person, hands on training. The pandemic’s arrival certainly instigated a search for training tools that could help overcome the challenge of delivering training remotely to a large, distributed workforce.

Design Interactive specializes in augmented and virtual reality training. Their flagship product, XRMentor™, is an instructor led and self-guided training platform enhanced by augmented reality. DI’s ClassroomXR™ feature allows companies like Star Truck Rentals to provide livestreamed, first person instruction to remote technicians. According to Matt Johnston, Design Interactive’s commercial solutions director, Star Truck Rentals is joining a group of companies that are taking an innovative approach to augmented reality training.

“Firms like Star Truck Rentals are asking what they can do now that is effective and delivers training at scale,” he explained. “Using XRMentor™ they can put the augmented reality hardware on a single expert and use it to train all their technicians simultaneously and then share a recorded video of the instruction with everyone after the fact.”

Star Truck Rentals will certainly benefit from using the live streaming feature to make a companywide impact quickly. But they aren’t stopping there. They are going to outfit each of their facilities with XRMentor™ on Microsoft HoloLens 2 headsets and tablets making self-guided procedures available to everyone.

“The live instructor led classroom is certainly a great feature and likely where we will start,” Rugg noted “but our vision is to make sure our technicians have the information they need, when they need it.”

The investment in HoloLens 2 headsets and tablets means Star Truck Rentals will be able to take advantage of the entire XRMentor™ feature set. “ClassroomXR™ is a great place to start”, Johnston said, “but accessibility to content is important, and as Star Truck Rentals deploys the devices, technicians will be able to follow self-guided procedures and use a remote video collaboration feature to seek troubleshooting help from remote experts in real time”.

XRMentor™ offers four main features that Star Truck Rentals will benefit from:

• Web Authoring Portal: Easy to use augmented reality training authoring tool to create training modules, self-guided procedures and make video calls to remote technicians.
• ClassroomXR™: Live streamed, instructor led training from the Microsoft HoloLens to technicians viewing on the web portal.
• Self Guided Procedures: Step by step instruction provided on Microsoft Hololens 2, phones and tablets.
• Remote Video Collaboration: Face to face video calling between technicians and experts on phones, tablets and the web portal.

Design Interactive and Star Truck Rentals will collaborate on training content creation and craft an effective deployment plan that will enable technicians to get an immediate benefit from this investment but that also aligns with the long-term goals of the company.

About Design Interactive Inc.

Design Interactive is a leading provider of extended reality solutions including XRMentor, an instructor led training and self guided procedure platform enhanced by augmented reality. Founded in 1998, DI has been developing custom solutions for enterprise markets including oil/gas, utilities, trucking and transportation, healthcare, manufacturing and defense. For more information, visit the XRMentor website, Twitter and LinkedIn pages.

More info http://www.xrmentor.net

Design Interactive, XRMentor Contact:

Matt Johnston, Director Commercial Solutions,
Design Interactive
matthew.johnston@designinteractive.net
Tel: (352) 278-3050

VRARA Partners with GeoWeek

The VRARA is excited to partner with the amazing team at GEO Week!

About Geo Week

Imagine a single powerhouse event that champions the coming together of geospatial technologies and the built environment. Where professionals from a range of disciplines network and gain insight into the increasing confluence of their worlds. Where cutting-edge technology offers new possibilities, improved efficiencies, and better outcomes. And where education opens the door to the future just ahead.

AEC Next Technology Expo & Conference, International Lidar Mapping Forum, and SPAR 3D Expo & Conference, along with partner events ASPRS Annual Conference and USIBD Annual Symposium, are coming together in 2022.

Geo Week, the intersection of geospatial + the built world

The VRARA will have its own exhibition area at the event with GREAT discounts for our members. If you are interested in connecting with leaders in the AEC community this is an opportunity that you won’t want to miss. We will also be hosting a social event and some content so please get in touch to get involved. Sponsorship opportunities are available for our social events.

Please contact am@thevrara.com to learn more!

https://www.geo-week.com/

Penske Truck Leasing Chooses Design Interactive’s XRMentor™ to Train Technicians

Design Interactive (DI), an Orlando based firm, is proud to announce that Penske Truck Leasing has chosen their XRMentor™ software to train their technicians. XRMentor™ is an instructor-led and self-guided training platform enhanced by augmented reality enables Penske experts to live stream training to remote technicians at scale.

DI is proud to work an innovative firm like Penske Truck Leasing who has a history of investing in emerging technologies to benefit their associates and was quick to see the value in DI’s XRMentor™.

“Penske is proud to be at the forefront of industry innovation by offering this cutting-edge training to our associates,” stated Holly Gerke, Penske vice president of technical training and development. “The virtual nature of the program allows our technical trainers to reach a larger number of technicians in the field quicker and boost the consistency and scalability of technician training.”

While the planning and implementation of this program were in play prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic’s arrival certainly accelerated the timetable. Penske, like other firms, were seeking solutions that enabled their expert trainers to continue to train remote technicians cost effectively while access to facilities was limited.

“The pandemic required firms to evaluate how they deliver training. Firms still want to provide live, hands on training, but it is more difficult to train in person now. So Penske used XRMentor™ to flip the script”, according to Matt Johnston, DI’s Director of Commercial Solutions. “They put the augmented reality headset on a single expert instructor and used it to livestream hands on training to remote technicians. It is a concept of one to many.”

Ernie Luzania is a Penske technical training manager based in Denver who has trained all the program participants to date.

“No one in the industry has used this technology the way we are using it in the service department today,” he explained. “The technicians really get the feeling that the training is tailored to them. Using this program, we can achieve a more consistent repair coast-to-coast.”

It is common for firms to assume they need to purchase a headset for each technician to achieve the consistency Penske sought. But such an approach requires significant capital. XRMentor™’s instructor led feature ClassroomXR™ however, lowers the barrier to entry and as such, has received significant interest.

“With ClassroomXR™ they purchase 1 headset and dedicate one expert, yet impact all technicians, of different experience levels in very short period of time” Johnston noted. “As the firm matures in their use of the technology, they can make further investments and as partners, we are with them every step of the way”.

XRMentor™’s feature set was designed so that firms could logically, and cost effectively mature their use of the technology for training. The features allow a firm to support the See One, Do One, Teach One method of training and include:

• ClassroomXR™: Instructor led training that allows a remote technician to see the trainer’s first-person view of the skills being taught.
• Self-Guided Procedures: Step by step instruction on the Microsoft HoloLens 2 or mobile device that lets a technician practice or even execute a repair.
• Remote Video Collaboration: One on one video sharing where a trainer can view trainee performance or an expert can help a technician troubleshoot in real time.

Since XRMentor™ is available phones and tablets, firms who have invested in mobile devices for technicians, or have a bring your own device policy, continue to benefit from this lower cost of entry.

“Once a firm sees success with ClassroomXR™ they begin to use the mobile app to distribute content”, Johnston explained. “There is no further hardware investment required to continue to get value from the other features of XRMentor™”.

DI has plans to continue to improve ClassroomXR™ and become hardware agnostic. But the expansion will be done with the input of customers, and a direct focus on their needs.

“We are in lockstep with customers like Penske. They are partners and their input is extremely important to our product roadmap” according to Teddy Bixby, Product Manager for XRmentor™ at DI. “Yes, we are selling software but we are building relationships that we hope continue for a long time. With emerging technology like AR, that is the best way to do it and we appreciate that Penske believes in this as well”.


Please click here if you are interested in learning more about XRMentor™.

Training in Augmented Reality

By Angelica Jasper, Claire Hughes, Kay Stanney, Jennifer Riley, & Cali Fidopiastis of Design Interactive, Inc.

Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) are experiencing massive growth as  platforms to support educational efforts, with an estimated $700M being invested in immersive education applications by 2025. Interestingly, while an estimated 80% of teachers already have ready access to VR/AR head worn displays, few use them regularly, but most want to uncover how best to incorporate them into the educational process. The desire to adopt VR/AR technology likely stems from its high efficacy, as on average, immersive training solutions have been found to be more effective and efficient than traditional training of cognitive, technical, and socio-emotional skills. The learning gains (pre- to post- test) from immersive training average 2.5% more per 1⁄4 hour of training for cognitive skills versus traditional training and 2.95% per hour gain in technical skills versus traditional training. Further, immersive training realizes ~30% more performance efficiency and equivalent fewer errors versus traditional training, with increases of ~30% in confidence and self-efficacy, though standard deviations tend to be high. These gains are believed to be derived from the immersive nature of VR/AR that can bolster knowledge acquisition, information retention, engagement, and presence. Users can proactively interact with 3D content in the confines of reality, facilitating enriching learning approaches. Within the military medical training domain, AR has successfully supported a variety of healthcare knowledge and skills including surgical training, anatomy lessons, and heart disease education. AR may be particularly suited to military medical training) because it provides innovative image-guided approaches, often with interactive, 3D images that provide a variety of real-time feedback (e.g., haptic feedback) through hands-on learning. Realistic, real-time feedback is crucial within the military medical domain due to fast-paced nature of the battlefield. 

Despite the documented benefits of AR for learning and training, the AR industry is still working to overcome several developmental obstacles that may negatively impact information retention and performance. For instance, there is some evidence for attentional tunneling and skill transfer problems that inhibit learning in AR. Further, the connection between individual psychological characteristics and learning performance in AR is limited, leaving the question remaining: What makes someone well suited and responsive to learning in AR? 

Individual Differences in Learning

Individuals differ in their ability to learn and retain information. Successful adult learning has been linked to psychological abilities, including processing speed, memory, and general intelligence. These propensities can be further impacted by both an individual’s level of internal motivation and their ability to believe that they have control over their lives, also known as internal locus of control. Performance is often enhanced by an internal locus of control in adult learners, which has been significantly connected to self-efficacy. 

Self-efficacy refers to an individual’s personal judgement of how well they can perform at something given the skills they have. Someone with strong self-efficacy is more inclined to view challenges as a motivating factor to overcome and is driven to learning and growing their skillset. This individual psychological characteristic has been repeatedly linked to more successful learning performance, including higher engagement with the content and can even predict future learning successes. Differences in self-efficacy may be reflective of learning performance in many contexts, including a variety of medical trainings. Thus, the increased self-efficacy associated with VR/AR training is beneficial to learning.

Real-World Application

Recent work from Design Interactive seeks to establish what makes an individual receptive to learning in AR, specifically in the context of tactical casualty combat care (TCCC), a standardized military medical training curriculum. Design Interactive has developed AUGMED™, an AR-based TCCC trainer designed to teach and assess TCCC skills in an interactive, simulated environment.  

In a recent study, AUGMED™ was used to assess the psychological effects of AR in order to better characterize “AR Psychological Suitability”, which characterizes the extent to which a context is receptive to and a system is capable of producing learning and desirable psychological and human performance outcomes in AR environments. Participants experienced a series of training modules to guide them through treatment of massive hemorrhage and battlefield respiratory injuries. Using the AR lessons as a guide, participants were then required to perform procedures and complete skills tests to assess overall learning performance. 

Researchers parsed participants into low, medium, and high-performance groups to evaluate performer differences, including the individual psychological characteristic of self-efficacy. Group difference analyses revealed that high performers consistently had greater levels of self-efficacy associated with AR training, whereas low performers had lower levels of self-efficacy.  In other words, those who believed they could perform the medical tasks given their AR lessons (in combination with any previously held knowledge) were the most successful at retaining the learned information (as measured by a skills test) and applying it in the experimental scenario. These findings are consistent with and reflective of prior self-efficacy and learning research, indicating that the AUGMED™ training suite may produce intended learning outcomes. 

Suitability for AR Learning 

Results from this study indicate that those individuals with higher self-efficacy exhibited better learning outcomes in an AR environment than those with low self-efficacy. These individuals with higher self-efficacy were more responsive to the AR learning modality whereas those with low self-efficacy may need more support (e.g., additional hints, explanations, guidance) when training in immersive environments. As these types of innovative technologies emerge and become mainstream, it will become even more valuable to identify the role of individual psychological factors that affect AR learning performance.

Contact:

Angelica Jasper

Angelica.Jasper@designinteractive.net

Design Interactive Partners with Hitachi to Win Army’s xTech Direct-to-Phase II SBIR

Sponsored by the Army’s new xTech SBIR program, Design Interactive has partnered with Hitachi to win a Direct-to-Phase II Award. Under Topic F of the solicitation (Condition Based Maintenance for Combat Vehicles), Design Interactive proposed the development of AUGMENTOR® Data Unification Operations (DUO).

AUGMENTOR® DUO is a Soldier-centered diagnostic tool that uses a hybrid approach to condition-based maintenance modeling which will improve the Army’s ability to manage complex systems by providing data and analytics to support preemptive and predictive maintenance.

Like traditional predictive modeling techniques, DUO combines onboard sensor data with vehicle-specific history and aggregates this data across a fleet of similar, peer vehicles. What makes DUO unique, is the fusion of the traditional data with physics and material models of components and Soldier-provided data. This data fusion not only allows DUO to better diagnose the most likely current condition but also provides a prognosis that predicts the likely remaining useful life of a component. Additionally, it results in a more accurate diagnosis of the current condition, a prognosis that predicts the remaining useful life (RUL) of a component, and fully integrates the Soldier into condition-based maintenance. Ultimately, DUO will result in increased fleet and personnel readiness.

Design Interactive is a small woman-owned business founded in 1998, headquartered in Orlando, Florida with over 20 years of human factors, user-centered design, and modeling expertise. For more information on Design Interactive, please visit us at https://www.designinteractive.net/.

For more information about the Army’s xTech program, see here: https://www.arl.army.mil/xtechsearch/

Contact:

Name: Stacey Sanchez

Email Address: stacey.sanchez@designinteractive.net

Overcoming Cybersickness in Virtual and Augmented Reality

VR/AR technologies are transforming how we connect with people, information, and experiences. Ranging from fully immersive virtual worlds to augmentation holograms overlaid on the real-world, VR/AR technologies are rapidly being considered and adopted in industries across the globe. Nearly a third of executives rate being a pioneer in the application of VR/AR technologies as critically important, envisioning VR/AR as addressing critical enterprise pain points through provision of highly effective workforce training solutions, augmentation of day-to-day production activities, and redefining customer experiences.

With VR/AR, workers can be immersed in virtual environments that bring new context and realism to industry training. By implementing XR on the factory floor, organizations can significantly cut costs, engage their employees in new and exciting ways, improve safety, and re-imagine the future of work. VR/AR is also destined to reshape commerce, enabling consumers to remotely explore physical products, enhancing remote customer support, and fostering interactive branding.

The opportunities are limitless. Well, they will be once we fully understand and deal with cybersickness.

What is cybersickness?
Cybersickness is a form of motion sickness that users may experience during immersive exposure to VR/AR technologies. Depending on the content and technology, 20-95% of users typically experience some symptoms, including headache, eyestrain, disorientation, sweating, nausea, and beyond. Symptoms can last from minutes to hours after exposure, with problematic lingering post exposure effects including unstable posture, shifts in vision, and altered hand-eye coordination. If you are thinking that sounds like intoxication, it has been equated to such! While cybersickness is most often associated with VR, it is something that can affect users in all types of immersive environments. The potential for cybersickness could significantly impact the adoption of VR/AR technologies for the enterprise if it is not adequately addressed.

Is cybersickness really a problem in AR?
Cybersickness has been researched and characterized in VR for decades, but we don’t know as much about the extent it affects users of AR technology. Typically, VR users experience more symptoms on the disorientation to nausea end of the scale, whereas AR users are more likely to experience headaches and eyestrain. While these symptoms may not sound debilitating, when AR headsets are used for extended periods of time, these symptoms can have a significant impact and, as indicated by a recent study, be as severe as those associated with VR exposure. Think about how you would feel if you wore glasses with the wrong prescription all day… that is what donning AR for long periods of time may feel like for some users.

Further, when users start to experience cybersickness in VR, they oftentimes become nauseous, abort their exposure, and take a break to feel better; but with symptoms that seem as mild as a headache, users may try to “power through” AR long duration exposures, causing potentially more persistent post exposure effects (e.g., blurry vision, altered depth perception). If AR technology poses risks to post exposure visual functioning, this could affect postural stability or hand-eye coordination and present a safety risk. It is critically important to understand the impacts of long duration AR exposure and mitigate them where possible.

What can you do about it?
Here are a few guidelines on how to limit cybersickness in AR and realize the full potential of this innovative technology.

Limit Exposure Duration
Limiting exposure in AR headsets to 20 minutes or less, with at least a 30 minute break before the next exposure can help decrease severity of cybersickness significantly. This allows a user’s body to readjust and recalibrate to the real-world. This is particularly important if the user was performing close-up tasks in the headset, as long duration AR exposure while performing close-up tasks can cause post exposure dexterity issues. If your AR applications require headset exposures longer than 20 minutes, you should anticipate dropouts and higher levels of cybersickness, including prolonged headaches and eyestrain. Make sure to assess these symptoms for their severity, as this could prove important to user safety post exposure.

Use Multiple VR/AR Technologies
As AR grows within multiple industries, we will eventually see the advent of truly adaptive AR solutions that will be able to personalize the experience based on a user’s physiology, but until this is a reality, it may make sense to consider coupling multiple technologies. For example, mobile AR (i.e., on a tablet or phone) can deliver volumes of information without fear of lengthy exposure, such as when conveying declarative knowledge. Since AR headset-based training is generally associated with more pronounced cybersickness, it may be safer, and possibly more cost effective, to use it sparingly, say when delivering contextually relevant information or procedural hands-on knowledge.

In Closing
Enterprise leaders aim to redefine their organization with VR/AR technologies. Understanding the possibility of cybersickness associated with XR and ways to manage it can assist in the design and development of important application guidelines and usage protocols. A recent study has found that cybersickness symptoms in long duration AR exposure may persist just as long as some of the worst VR systems. So, even though the cybersickness symptoms in AR (visual fatigue, headaches) maybe be less obvious than those in VR (overt gastrointestinal distress), the symptoms associated with AR can linger for long periods of time post exposure and compromise safety. But by following some simple guidelines and understanding associated risks, industries across the globe can successfully adopt these immersive technologies and reap their tremendous benefits.

Contact:

Name: Claire Hughes

Email Address: claire.hughes@designinteractive.net