JPH0954540A - Simulator for having feeling of virtual reality in the body - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable an operator to have the pseudo experience of all maintenance and inspection items and to have the pseudo training on the assumption of an accident as well by processing the data on the movements of the hands by gloves and the movements of the body by sensors with a graphic arithmetic unit, sending the data to a head mount display and sending the acoustic data outputted by this graphic arithmetic unit to this head mount display. SOLUTION: This simulator is composed of the head mount display, a scan converter, a graphic work station, the gloves, magnetic sensors and a stereoscopic acoustic system. The data on the movements of the hands by the cybergloves put on the hands and the movements of the body by the sensors are processed by the graphic processing unit along the scenes in the facilities projected on the head mount display and RGB signals are outputted. These signals are sent via the scan converter to the head mount display. The acoustic data outputted from the graphic arithmetic unit are sent via the stereoscopic acoustic system to the head mount display.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a sensation simulator for facility maintenance personnel. More specifically, the present invention relates to a sensation simulator using virtual reality technology useful for security management such as daily patrols in factories, substations, hospitals, laboratories, etc., normal operations, accident patrols, simulated accident experiences, etc. Therefore, it is particularly suitable as a simulator for facility maintenance personnel.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, factories, substations, hospitals, various research institutes, transportation centers, etc. where the occurrence of accidents may have a great impact on human life, social life, and economic activities. Regarding maintenance, maintenance personnel have been provided with daily maintenance and inspections and education and training on emergency response in the event of an accident.

[0003] For example, in order to safely and stably supply electricity to railways, factories, households, etc., meticulous attention is paid to maintenance and inspection in substations. If it occurs, it can be a catastrophe, so it is necessary to sufficiently educate the maintenance personnel of the substation.As a means to do so, we will make a manual of maintenance items for work and The training was thorough.

Maintenance and inspection items by maintenance personnel in the substation are roughly divided into three items, namely, oil leakage, switch lamps in the switchboard and cubicles, burner gas pressure drop, compressor air leakage and other obstacles. Routine patrol to discover, normal operation such as closing and opening of circuit breaker and auxiliary circuit breaker, lever operation of power receiving panel, manual opening of circuit breaker, and Ry
It is an accident patrol such as operation check and accident site check, and by making every possible effort for these maintenance and inspection items, power supply can be smoothly performed and recovery from an accident or the like can be performed quickly.

However, each of such maintenance and inspection items has a great number of details, and the maintenance personnel need to learn the inspection and operation of all these details.
It took a lot of time. In particular, among such maintenance and inspection items, it is impossible to have a simulated experience of closing the circuit breaker or operating the operating rod. There was no choice but to learn it, and it took a lot of time to fully acquire it.

Furthermore, in the case of an accident, it is impossible to actually cause an accident in the on-the-job training from the discovery of the accident location to the repair thereof. It was impossible to do so, and there was a concern about whether maintenance personnel could respond promptly and appropriately in the case of an actual accident. In order to speed up such maintenance and inspection education and to implement on-site training on accidents, work training is currently being conducted using actual equipment that imitates actual equipment, but maintenance staff at substations It was very difficult to train a series of operations in a certain limited space because of its scale and complexity of operation contents.

In response to such training using an actual machine, recently, development of a sensible simulator using virtual reality technology has been proposed. However, most of the experience-based simulators that use this virtual reality technology experience the operation while a person is sitting down, and using virtual reality technology, substations that involve spatial movements and complicated tasks. It is desired to build a simulation that allows the maintenance staff of the place to experience a series of operations, but it has not been realized yet.

As described above, the problem concerning the maintenance and inspection of the substation has been described, but the present situation is not limited to the case of the substation, and the actual situation does not change in various factories, hospitals, laboratories and the like. Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, solves the drawbacks of the conventional education and training means, and can not only experience all the maintenance inspection items in a very small space but also cause an accident. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a sensation simulator that uses virtual reality technology and that enables simulated training.

[0009]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a head mounted display that reflects the scenery in a facility and emits sound during work, and a glove that converts movements of a maintenance person's hand into data. , A sensor that converts the movements of the maintenance personnel into data, a graphic computing device that calculates video and audio data from the operation data of the maintenance personnel, RG
By a scan converter that converts a B signal into a sequential RGB signal and a stereophonic sound system that converts the acoustic data into an audio signal, a cyber glove worn by a hand along a landscape of a facility displayed on a head mounted display. The data of hand movements and body movements by the sensors are processed by the graphic processing unit to output RGB signals, which are sent to the head mounted display via the scan converter. The acoustic data output from the graphic processing unit is stereoscopic. A virtual reality sensation simulator characterized by being sent to a head mounted display via an audio system.

[0010]

With the above-described structure, the sensation simulator using the virtual reality technology of the present invention responds to the needs of the site, and <a> a series of maintenance and inspection operations can be performed in accordance with the procedure.
> The state of the facility control system changes according to the operation, and <c
> It is possible for people who have experience to feel as if they are inside the facility.

More specifically, taking the case of a substation as an example, in <a> “A series of maintenance and inspection operations can be performed in accordance with the procedure”, (1) operation target (equipment) to the next operation target It can be moved to (equipment), and (2) closing of circuit breakers, opening SW, manual operation handle, cubicle door, door,
All operations that maintenance personnel actually do, such as circuit breaker pull-out operations, can be performed, and (3) reading of meter readings,
All confirmation items such as confirmation of lamp lighting can be confirmed in the same way as in reality, and (4) actual work such as mounting a ground rod can be performed.

Further, in <b>"The state of the facility control system also changes according to the operation", the main circuits such as the non-voltage section, the charging section, and the energization section change according to the operation, and the inappropriate operation is performed. If you do, there is a reaction similar to reality. In addition, in <c> “Getting a sense of realism as if the experiencer was inside the facility,” (1) the virtual space follows even if the experiencer moves freely, and (2) a beautiful stereoscopic image for the experiencer. give,
(3) An image with a wide field of view is given, (4) an image with good quality is given, and (5) the sound accompanying the operation is simulated.

Now, the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to examples.

[0014]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A sensation simulator using the virtual reality technology of the present invention can be exemplified as one for substation maintenance personnel in FIG. The example of FIG. 1 is composed of a head mounted display, a scan converter, a graphic workstation, a glove, a magnetic sensor, and a stereophonic sound system.

More specifically, for example, as a head mounted display, Data manufactured by n-VISION
VISOR10X, Silicon Graphics ONYX RE2 as a graphic workstation, and Virtual Technology as a glove.
s company Cyber Grove, as a magnetic sensor, P
FASTRAK manufactured by LHEMUS, and as a sound system, Crystal River Engine
ERING's ACOUSTETRON is used.
As a language as a software environment, C language is used and a library "Performer" of Silicon Graphics Co. is used. Of course, the present invention is not limited to these.

In this structure, first, the trainee sets the head mounted display on the head and puts the glove on the hand. The movement of the trainee's hand is sensed by the glove, and the data is sent to the graphic workstation via a cable or the like. On the other hand, the magnetic sensor detects the movement of the worker's body, and the data is also sent to the graphic workstation via a cable or the like.

The data relating to the movement of the hand and the movement of the body are processed in the graphic workstation, and the data of the scenery in the substation that can be seen from the virtual place of the maintenance personnel is converted into RGB signals by a cable or a cable. The data is sent to the scan converter via a switch or distributor. In this scan converter, the RGB signals are converted into sequential RGB signals and sent to the head mounted display.

On the other hand, the sound data generated when the maintenance staff actually works is processed in the graphic work station, and the stereo sound data is sent to the stereo sound system through the cable, and the stereo sound system is processed. The system converts it to an audio signal and sends it to the head mounted display. The head-mounted display can display an actual pseudo image on the display in front of the left and right eyes, and generate sound from the left and right speakers, and experience maintenance inspection items by visual and auditory images and sounds. It becomes possible to do.

Of course, if accident data is input in advance in the graphic workstation, the maintenance personnel can experience the accident in a simulated manner and can perform training on how to deal with the accident. Therefore, we actually input data on a three-story substation into a graphic workstation and evaluate the drawing speed. In this case, the total polygon amount required to represent the substation and equipment is about 154,000 polygons, and the first floor portion is about 49,0 polygons.
00 polygons, 2nd floor is about 76,000 polygons, 3
The floor area was about 95,000 polygons. In addition, the texture amount is about 3.3 Mbyte in the first floor.
e 7.9 Mbytes on the 2nd floor, about 6.8 on the 3rd floor
It was Mbyte. Furthermore, the number of parts is about 1,250 on the first floor and about 2,000 on the second floor.
The number was 0, and about 2,700 in the third floor.

Next, using this simulator, the first floor and the second floor
The drawing speed of each of the third and third floors is evaluated. These drawing speeds are affected by the viewing angle, the amount of polygons included in the field of view, the size of polygons in the field of view, etc., so the same frame rate cannot always be maintained. At that time, the frame rate of one eye is calculated.

The result is, for example, as illustrated in FIGS. 2 shows data on the first floor, FIG. 3 shows data on the second floor, and FIG. 4 shows data on the third floor. As can be seen from these FIGS. 2 to 4, the drawing speed was maintained at 4 to 30 frames / sec. As a result of the experiment, the frame rate that does not feel like dropped frames is 10-15 frames /
From this result, it is understood that it is best to prepare the data so that the amount of polygons included in the visual field is always about 10,000 polygons or less.

When 9 experiencers evaluated the experience simulator for substation maintenance personnel using this virtual reality technology, the evaluation results are shown in Table 1.

[0023]

[Table 1]

As a qualitative evaluation, it is superior in image quality, responsiveness, and function as compared with a general virtual reality system, and it is possible to experience maintenance management and accidents in an actual substation with a fairly accurate pseudo experience. It is possible. of course,
The present invention is not limited to the above examples. The detailed configuration can be changed in various ways.

[0025]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, a sensation simulator for facility maintenance personnel such as substations, which uses virtual reality technology, is provided, and it is possible not only to experience maintenance inspection items but also to assume an accident. Pseudo training is also possible.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an outline of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a relationship diagram showing a relationship between the number of polygons and a frame rate according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a relationship diagram showing a relationship between the number of polygons and a frame rate according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a relationship diagram showing a relationship between the number of polygons and a frame rate according to the present invention.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A head-mounted display that reflects the scenery of a facility and emits sound during work, a glove that converts the movement of the maintenance personnel's hands into data, a sensor that converts the movement of the maintenance personnel's body into data, and the operation of maintenance personnel. RG, a graphic operation unit that processes and outputs video and audio data from data
A scan converter that converts the B signal into a sequential RGB signal and a stereophonic sound system that converts the acoustic data into an audio signal are provided, and a hand with gloves attached to the hand along a landscape of the facility displayed on the head mounted display. Motion data and body motion data from the sensor are processed by the graphic processing unit to output RGB signals, which are sent to the head mounted display via the scan converter. The acoustic data output from the graphic processing unit is stereophonic. A virtual reality sensation simulator characterized by sending to a head mounted display via a system.