Design of a Virtual Reality Environment for Maintainability Tests and Manufacturing Systems Simulations

The paper describes a complete Virtual Reality environment realized by the authors in which to simulate maintainability tests and manufacturing systems. An original VR architecture (MATEMASYS) has been conceived in order to create a unique environment whose features are able to satisfy requirements both for Virtual Maintenance and Virtual Manufacturing tasks. The architecture is based on complex hardware and software technologies available at the VR Laboratory, named ‘VRTest’, of the Competence Regional Center for the qualification of transportation systems founded by Campania Region. Two case studies realized in MATEMASYS, regarding the maintainability of a railway boogie and the simulation of a welding work cell, are finally presented.